Reconciliation.

I remember a few years ago talking to a then new, now old friend. We were talking about our lives and what we wanted to do with them. A conversation filled with purpose, that in the coming year, when the world hit me hard, I would forget in more ways than one. But, as we pulled out of the Wal-Mart parking lot, the conversation was alive.

I told said friend that I didn't know practically what my future would look like, but I knew one thing it would involve. Reconciliation/redemption. I said, "I know you aren't supposed to have favorite things about God, but if I were to, that would be it. The fact that God doesn't just save, but restores, redeems, and reconciles."

And, years of life have past, but I still feel the same way. Just awed that God would go further than saving us.

Still, when it comes to reconciling with other people, I run into a hiccup. I find myself confused as to act in friendships with grace and love and forgiveness, always hoping for reconciliation when I am being hurt. I have struggled with this through many friendships. Sometimes, the result was sticking it out in a place I shouldn't have. Sometimes it was cutting and run when I shouldn't have. But, each time, by the grace of God, I learn a little more. Get a little closer to the promise of reconciliation.

Yet, I stand at these crossroads again. I wish I felt confident and wise in action. But, my stomach feels sour and I'm at a bit of a loss. I groan in prayer. Or sometimes I just take to anger.

"You will lose someone you can't live without, and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you will never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But, this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn't scale back up. And you come through. It's like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly - that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp."

Somehow, those words of Ms. Lamott, make strong sense to my heart in this time.