you, through my eyes

I had the pleasure this week to see myself through someone else's eyes.  It was a blessing like I have never experienced. Always seems like a weird thing to say to someone "if you could only see yourself the way I see you." Really? Cheesy and silly and if I'm honest, makes me a bit uncomfortable. But there is truth in there. Come with me on my brain's jog through this truth (at least in my life as it relates to an old friend of mine)...
This week I received a desperate message from a friend asking for prayer. She's absolutely my hero. She is the most amazing mother. A devoted wife and faithful servant of Christ. An advocate for unwanted children and a presence and steady volunteer in both her church and local community. She seems to always have things under control. Children always smiling in pictures, house always clean, she is healthy read thin and I'm jealous, she always looks amazing and is one of my oldest and dearest friends. She is honest in the way that you want a friend to be tells me to get my crap together. And compliments and encourages me completely uniquely. (She told me once, after I fell asleep in her dorm suite during a study/cram session coffee and lazy afternoon that my husband would someday be smitten by the way I snore ever so quietly when I nap). This is the way I see her.
Often times I will refer to her around others that have never met her and they know exactly who I'm talking about because of the way I've shared the friend that "I see." This week I hurt in my very soul when I received her message because although I see a perfect gal, she and I are close enough that I know when she reaches out, it's out of desperation in dealing with a situation out of her control. Most recently, that situation is parenting a new baby girl from China.
Hang on friends, I'm shifting gears... Scott and I had lunch together on Monday and as we dined on the biggest most delicious burritos in all of Pullman I looked up and saw an ad for the local Humane Society. It was an ad asking for foster families for animals that need a home but have not been adopted yet. I remembered a time years ago when my friend and her husband (who had no children at the time) would take in animals from their local humane society and care for them until they were able to be adopted by a permanent family. I remember thinking it was a bit odd at the time, but she liked animals and it was a nice thing to do, so hey, more power to ya, right? Wrong. There's more here.
God was working in my friend's heart even then. She was caring for the least of these. She was showing compassion when it wasn't found elsewhere. He was preparing her, even then for this time in her life to care for and protect and become the full time caregiver to this sweet new child that was then growing merely in thought and prayer of her Creator. I as I often do to poor Scott announced "it's part of her nature, it's a part of who she was created to be at her very core, it's who she has been all along, I wonder if she knows that?" Huh? Was his reply. I went on to explain the message I had received from Laurie and how I had been praying for her and for her family.
I read once in a book by Erwin McMannus that we needn't pray about community or professing faith. Neither do we need to pray about whether we should be arrogant or humble, takers or givers, indulgers or servers. God has already spoken on all these issues and more. When you do pray on these matters, God confirms what he has said with the added element of "what are you waiting for?" My dear friend is acting on what God has already spoken into her life. It's part of who she is and she's GREAT at it because it's what she was created to do.
I wonder if she ever sees herself through someone else's eyes? Today, I'm still praying for she and her family, but what I see is an unrelenting, fierce love for those that need it most - I hope she sees that too.