“There are days, when I feel the best of me is ready to give in. Then there are days, when I feel, I am letting go, soaring on the wind…” the opening verse of Jacqui Velazquez’s On My Knees. This line from a most amorous Christian song would have definitely defined me seven years ago. In a job which should have set me free, but seemed to only keep me quite stationary, I lamented this fate each day.
At this particular job, there was a normal intake of new recruits at least twice a year. When the usual new recruits arrived, I was drawn to one particular person that would later become one of the closest friends I could find. The group was large, quite articulate and very talkative. I could hardly fit in with them because not only were there age differences, but experiences and realities of the place we called work.
I wasn’t very close to anyone of them, but I truly enjoyed being included in their many lunch banters and laughs. The particular person I mentioned above had a welcoming spirit. She had been the one who invited me to join them and it truly started to change my experience in that reality.
Deep sorrow paved the way for rebirth
At this time in my life I had just recommitted my life to God and was on a journey of self-renewal. It was however the same time that things at work started to get extremely hard and my faith was constantly being tested. I had hit rock bottom and my sorrows and pain were so real. I was in the bowels of depression and that stole whatever membrane of hope I had in life. I had just decided to try my best to keep my head above water to make it through each day, but some days were tougher than others.
On one particular day when I was at my lowest and sat at my desk despondent in fear, this particular person came to look for me. I had missed lunch I guess, and just being the candid person she was, she came to check in on me. I spoke from the heaviness of my pained heart and my final words echoed that I didn’t feel that anyone would miss me if I would die tomorrow. She responded without hesitation “No, Kimberley…I would miss you.”
She invited me to pray with her in one of the lounges at work. She explained that she had fasted and prayed there every Wednesday and that I was welcome to join her. I didn’t know the truly healing power of constant prayer. I didn’t know the power of a Godly friend. We prayed for many things that year. Mostly for our country and our co-workers, but also for the things we hoped to achieve.
She desired marriage and I wanted a scholarship to study. I must say that we both ended that year with the promise of our main wishes. I received a full-government scholarship to New Zealand, and she got engaged during that year. I was very grateful that I had made it home in time to be at her wedding and was dearly delighted to be chosen to toast the bride, recounting this very friendship that had changed my life.
God’s relentless love
I came to know and see God in a new way. I truly realise that he loved me enough to send me a Samaritan when I was bleeding and almost dead. That is God’s relentless LOVE for all of us. As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust (Psalm chapter 103 verse 13 – 14).
I couldn’t see the bigger plan or why all those things may have been happening to me at that time in my life. On days when I would wonder what my true purpose was for being at that job, I would remember the fruitful growth in God that came out of that period. The prayer, the fasting, the trust, the truths, the peace, the closeness to him…
Discipleship
It is often in our lowest periods that God can reach us and take us to where he intends us to be. As Christians we must always be ready to assist others. I can imagine how time consuming some might see walking one through such a low time might, but this is a form of discipleship.
I wasn’t expecting my life to change so significantly when I went through this, but I welcomed the growth. I was a Christian at the time I met my friend, but there was so much more for me to learn and she not only provided that but brought people into my life that could also add to my growth as well. As Christians, it is hard to grow significantly without discipleship.
Given this very gift in so many ways, I was delighted I could walk with a friend going through a dark time in her life. I was happy God had built me up through others to help her see him in a time when she didn’t understand his love. Today, she can’t see her existence without him, and I am reminded that our care and friendship is life changing. When I am approached by someone who is in a low place in their walk, I jump at the opportunity to share with them that I too have been there and have overcome, so they can too.
At the end of the day, we need to be there for each other. You could be on the receiving side like I was then, but you should always be preparing for when you will need to be on the giving side. You never know when your words, kindness or friendship to a saved or non-saved person may just change their life.