What He's Always About

Oh my goodness, where on earth did my week go? Seriously? Did I just tell you to hold on for

the next part of my story and then completely not find an ounce of time to write it down? I did, I did. Forgive me and move on.

O.K., so...when Lara and I talked about going to Houston for the shindiggy, she said she had friends who lived not far from there and that I would absolutely love them and that we could stay with them when we weren't at the conference. If you know me and my extroverted self, it's a dream to walk into the home of complete strangers and get to hang out and make new friends (Hi Darren and Amanda!). I love, love, love it. Lara, who flew into a different airport on the opposite side of town, let me know that she and Amanda wouldn't be able to pick me up in time, but they were sending someone else for me (Hi Deborah!). Double bonus! Now I get to ride in a car for an hour with a complete stranger. Needless to say, me and Deborah were the best of friends by the time I got to my destination.

On the way, it hit me that I had NO idea where in Houston I was or where I was going. So in between Deborah and I catching up on life and careers and kids and the adventurous weekend to come, I said, "Where are we going anyway?" Deborah said that we were headed to Katy, Texas, a west Houston suburb. I was like, "No way! I just reconnected with a friend from college on Facebook and I think she lives in Katy! That's crazy!" Then I proceeded to tell her how Nicole Francis and I began a relationship my freshman year of college and how she had begun asking questions about God and we started studying the Bible and praying together. Eventually, I baptized her in the deep end (funny!) of our university's pool and life and school took us on separate paths and we lost touch. And how funny that now I'm going to be staying in the same Houston suburb as her.

Oh, you wait. It gets better.

So after the conference, I call sweet Nicole to see if we can get together the next day (Sunday). She suggested accompanying me to Darren and Amanda's church and reminded me how back in November she had had a dream that we went to church together again someday. I was totally psyched about seeing her again and suggested that we meet up at Starbucks to catch up before church. Well, the girl walks in to Starbucks not having aged a day in the fifteen+ years since I've seen her (not fair!) And we begin talking and she says, "Do the people you're staying with have a little girl named Caroline?"

Yes, why yes they do.

"Is this her?" and she holds up a picture of her daughter, Phoebe, with Amanda's daughter, Caroline.

Are you kidding me?!

Here the two little girls had become the best of friends in a dance class but Caroline had stopped going and they weren't sure how to reconnect. Amanda about peed her pants when I walked in to church with Nicole. And I about peed my pants when I saw what God could do to reunite so many hearts in an area with a population of more than 5.5 million people. You mean that of all the people I could have gone to this conference with, God chooses my friend Lara who happens to know people in Houston, who happen to live in the same town as someone else I know and who happens to have their daughter in the same dance class as that friend?

IS HE RIDICULOUS OR WHAT?

And that's when I learned what He's all about. He's all about things that are eternal. Things that last. Things that matter. I can sit under great teachers and I can have fun experiences and I can get presidential suites and I can laugh until my eyeballs fall out, but even among those experiences, God will still be working behind the scenes and guiding my heart and my life toward His will. Because it matters. And everything that comes in contact with it matters. Relationships matter. People matter. Decisions matter. Character matters. Eternal things matter.

Ecclesiastes 3 says that, "He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end." I can truly not fathom from beginning to end what God did in orchestrating a meeting between me and Nicole. I do know this though: if God says that He has set eternity in my heart, it's because it was in His heart first.

Nicole and I are so thankful to have been able to rekindle our friendship live and in person. It was a gift to sit and catch up with her that day. I am sure that Nicole and Amanda will enjoy the new found friendship that they have. And beyond that, I am quite hopeful that two little girls whose hearts first became connected at a dance class will develop a friendship that leads them together toward the most important Relationship of all. Because He's always about eternity even in the midst of presidential suites and tutus.