A Valediction: Permitting Reflection

I had lunch with Ashley today-- our last meeting for a long time and compounded by the obscurity of when I can expect to see her again. She and Ben are spending the summer in a north African country learning the culture, language and about ministry among Muslims. They have moved all of their belongings into a storage unit because when they get back they have no idea where they will relocate to. Part of this summer for them will be to pray for direction for the fall, something I am praying for myself as well. I've often felt like I seem to move through phases and situations just behind Ashley. Much of the experiences and emotions I've gone through in the year since my graduation from college mirror what Ashley experienced the previous year.

This marks a major moment for me. For the last six years, Ashley has been an important fixture in my life. When I started college in 2001, unsure of why I was here in Arkansas, unsure of who I was and what the heck I was doing with my life, Ashley quickly became my closest friend. I forget sometimes that we did go to the same high school because she and I both are so different from when we left Tennessee, and that life seems more than just literally miles away. Coming here opened up my heart to allow God to mature me, place in me a desire for his will, and turn me into a woman pursuing godliness. In ways I can't express in words, God used Ashley to that end (which isn't really an end since I'm still a work in progress). She essentially discipled me though we didn't use those terms and we followed no "program". We just lived life together and taught one another along the way. Someone once told us that roommates couldn't be accountability partners, and we told him he was full of crap (well, not to his face). We did hold one another accountable; we prayed together; we studied the word together. And we laughed a lot. Even after we didn't live together any longer, we still made time together a priority. After we each graduated, we both stayed here in NWA. Now it's all changing. She and Ben are leaving, destination unknown. I am moving to Denver. As cliche as it sounds, it really does feel like the end of an era. And now I'm tearing up.

Our time together today was only okay. We talked about the wide open unknown that lays before us. We talked about summer plans. It felt rushed. But I have a feeling that not all the time in the world would have been a sufficient "goodbye". But distance does not sever bonds, it merely alters them, and so, in the words of Donne:

Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to aery thinness beat.

Here's to friends! Thanks, Ash.