I recently met a lovely lady by the name ‘Bisi’. To be honest, I know very little about her. What I do know is that she has been married for 11 years, and if I remember correctly, she has two children. She is from Nigeria and is currently completing her doctoral studies in law at the University of Pretoria.
Eight days after meeting, we spent some time together talking about God and our desires for the future. It rained heavily that day, but I thank God that the Holy Spirit gave me a firm nudge to take my umbrella and go and see her anyway, even if it was just for the hour that we both could spare.
I don’t usually wear my heart on my sleeve, but I found it easy to tell her that I felt like there were some things in my life that weren’t working out the way I wanted them to.
I felt like I needed more so that I could accomplish more.
She also shared some of the things that were on her heart and we shed a few tears. At the end of it, we were both encouraged by each other’s testimonies.
It was a simple meeting, with simple conversations but my heart was filled with hope and gratitude. Hope for what God was going to do in my life. Renewed expectation that He would do what He said He was going to do. I can’t explain it, but a rehabilitated sense of thankfulness overwhelmed me and was constantly tugging on my tear strings long after I had left.
We exchanged gifts, agreed to keep in touch and took a selfie. This was one day before she was to fly back home to Nigeria. As we hugged and said our goodbyes, I asked God why we had to meet right before she was about to leave the country for another couple of months. Why couldn’t we have been given a day where we could talk without incomplete errands gnawing at us to be fulfilled? Surely, we could’ve had many more fruitful conversations had we just met sooner.
It was only much later in the day that I thought: maybe not all friendships are meant to be the common “let’s meet over the weekend for some coffee” kind of friendships. There isn’t anything wrong with those types of friendships, I have several of them myself. Some friendships though, few and far between, God gives you momentarily so that you can be reminded of Him. He wants you to remember how far He has brought you and that He was, is and will forever will be with you.
Maybe the point of all of this was for me to see that it wasn’t that I needed more, but rather to remember that He is enough!!!
It has been about seven weeks since I last saw her, and I’m looking forward to seeing her again soon. However, even if I don’t see her again, I will never forget the day she looked me straight in the eye and said, “God has always done things at the right time!”
Even though I knew this to be true, I think I had forgotten. I had not been faithful to remember the words He had spoken at first. I had not tied them around my neck and had not gone back to revise His precious words initially engraved on my heart.
Nevertheless, God in His unfailing mercy sent me a very personal yet friendly reminder of who He is through a lovely lady whose last name I don’t even know!