You've Got a Friend...

This has been quite an emotional weekend for me. My dearest friend and mentor's husband has taken a job many miles away in the bitter cold Northeast.(It's in Detroit, but I'm a southern girl and anything north of NC is bitter cold.) She has been my buddy for over 10 years. We grew especially close after we both took an incredible leap of faith and adopted children from Liberia, Africa. We have laughed and cried and laughed and cried, but really just laughed ALOT! Mainly at ourselves, but definitely at the crazy lives we find ourselves living. We are living proof that God has an incredible sense of humor.
I cried and hurt last night as I realized that the reality of the situation. My buddy is moving away! Thank goodness for cell phones, because we will need to stay on top of each other's lives. Our husbands will just have to deal with the need to chat.
As I cried to the Lord,I asked, "Why?". Why did he feel the need to take my dear friend so far away? Did He ever hurt and cry as I was doing? God brought to my mind the shortest verse in the Bible: Jesus wept. It made me realize that He knew how my heart was breaking because he too had cried with his friends after their brother Lazarus had died. He also reminded me of his tears of agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. How, He was having to say goodbye to his closest friends on earth,his disciples, bye to the life of 33 years on earth. How he was having to make a painful choice to fulfill a greater purpose, His Father's plan. My friend Debbie has been praying for God's best as her husband has looked for a job. She truly is a woman after God's own heart and desires to follow God wherever he takes her and her family. God has a greater plan and purpose to fulfill in her life and her family's lives. God's ways are not our ways, even though we want to convince Him, we have some pretty good ideas about how things should be.
I will miss my friend more than she will know. I am not saying goodbye, rather, see ya soon. I know God will bring her family back to Charlotte if, His plan, His perfect plan allows. For now, as I blot my swollen eyes, I will hold on to His promises that He desires the best for us. Only He can know what that is. My job is to follow and surrender, no matter where the path will take me. I love my dear friend and her beautiful heart. Her willingness to die to self, in the most difficult ways. Even when she leaves everything she knows and loves. She will go with dignity and support from all the lives she has invested herself in. Mine will never be the same because of my dear friend, Debbie Alexander!
Love you friend!