Our church is doing a series on peoples' stories in an effort to learn more about God through the experiences of other people just like we learn from the stories of peoples' encounters with God in the Bible. The stories this week were Stories of Struggle and one of the discussion questions that came out of it is "What did someone else do for you that was an expression of God's love to you during your own struggle?"
One of my friends consistently shows me expressions of God's love by asking me questions that show she understands what's lying beneath the surface of the issue/struggle we're discussing. This means two things to me: 1) she (and God) help me realize things I hadn't thought about before and 2) she (and God) show me that I'm not the only one who cares or "gets" what's really going on.
Here's an example: You all know (if you've read my blog before) that I went through a really dark time when we first adopted Kevin. During a visit to my friend's house a couple of months after Kevin came home, I told her that it was difficult but I didn't go into too many details. I told her it was hard, I didn't think I enjoyed being a parent, etc. She asked me, "Do you love him?" I was stunned that she'd even ask that because why would someone think to ask, "Do you love your child?" Truth be told, I didn't feel that I loved him but it's not something I felt open to say. When she asked that, I knew that at least God (and probably my friend :-) knew how I was feeling and that I had a lot of stuff going on inside that I couldn't/shouldn't share.
I've talked to this friend about many issues since I've known her and I always leave our conversations feeling loved, understood and more clear-minded about things. She shows me through her questions how God loves and understands me deep inside.
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