I love this CS Lewis quote:
"In friendship...we think we have chosen our peers. In reality a few years' difference in the dates of our births, a few more miles between certain houses, the choice of one university instead of another...the accident of a topic being raised or not raised at a first meeting--any of these chances might have kept us apart. But, for a Christian, there are, strictly speaking no chances. A secret master of ceremonies has been at work. Christ, who said to the disciples, Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, I can truly say to every group of Christian friends, Ye have not chosen one another but I have chosen you for one another. The friendship is not a reward for our discriminating and good taste in finding one another out. It is the instrument by which God reveals to each of us the beauties of others."
That last part . . . the part about- it’s not my discriminating and good taste, but that God has chosen us for one another- I think that is amazing, (although, no one has ever called my tastes discriminating or good). The point is He cares about us and knows who we need in our lives to help us to develop the characteristics of His Son.
For example, this is Catherine . . . she is a legal secretary and until recently was employed but is taking a break from work now and is on my Uganda Team. She is married to Garth whom I have met at a BBQ, and who isn’t going to Uganda. She is a detail oriented woman -writing copious notes whenever we meet as a team, very professional, smart, thinks and talks fast and dresses up- as in: wears nice dresses.
Me? Well, I couldn’t be farther from Catherine in personality. Quite often I come to our meetings right after work in my laid back Preschool teacher attire (jeans and my red Sellwood Community Center T-shirt), glue in my hair and wearing dirty hiking boots. At our very first Team meeting I forgot to bring a notebook and had to borrow paper from my neighbor. I want you to know that I did have a pen. Oh also, I’m more of a slow thinker and talker . . . and I never wear dresses.
Our second meeting together was for our Memory Book training (more about that later). Catherine, wearing another lovely dress, gracefully slid into the seat next to me and with complete confidence stated: “I have decided you are my new best friend.” I think I was speechless. About a month later I thought I’d better get to know this lady- if we are going to be on the same team and good friends and all, so I called her and within a week or so we met up at Starbucks – she had tea and I had coffee. I think she was wearing a nice dress.
We started off, as most women do, talking about our families and jobs . . . then we started talking about Uganda and our insecurities about the trip. Catherine told me that she worried it would be very hard for her to see people who had been deformed (lips and ears cut off) by the LRA. (The LRA is a terrorist group in Central and West Africa). But then, remembering with hope, she told me this story:
Once she was at a prayer meeting where the people who wanted to be prayed over sat in a circle facing out and the people praying for them sat on chairs facing in. The outside people moved chair to chair so that each person who needed prayer was prayed for by each person praying . . . kind of a wheel of prayer. Anyway, there was a woman sitting on the inside circle- wanting to be prayed over- and she had some kind of major deformity on her face. Catherine said it was like the elephant-man disease; her face had extra-thick skin hanging down. Well, when it was Catherine’s turn to pray for this lady she strongly felt the Lord telling her to kiss this woman all over her face . . . so she did. The lady started to weep. I wonder if it was that it had been so very long since she had been kissed? Catherine prayed words of love and acceptance . . . and this lady rejoiced.
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