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Previous Challenge Entry (Level 1 – Beginner)
Topic: Bold (emotionally) (08/30/07)
I have an amazing friend whose life is consistently taking radical measures for daily kingdom work. Unknowingly, the actions of her life have severely challenged me, becoming part of a movement that is changing my own life.

We are so very different from each other that the odds of us being friends is extremely comical. She throws caution to the wind, and lives to enjoy every minute of her adventuresome life. I am the cautious, motherly older sister of five, more often than not “the stick in the mud.” She is exciting and carefree; as someone once told her, she redefines the “yeah man lifestyle.” I have siblings to protect and an image to project, a.k.a “Miss Goody Two Shoes.”

This girl is beyond your wildest imagination; she is the most intense, surest, and beautiful child of God and she lives every day, as she would say, “kickin’ it with Jesus.” She leaves me speechless when I even think about her and our friendship, and I wonder how I ever, ever, in my whole life, deserved to even meet her, much less claim her as my best friend.

She told me recently about one of her spontaneous adventures with another friend or two, in sharing “Jesus love” with some homeless people – a nighttime excursion downtown of a random city where she was visiting. She will defy all reason, fear, and common sense, to reach the dark, untouchable dredges of a lost world with the love of Christ. It may only be with a bottle of water, or a listening heart, but she is action smeared all over with Love.

She is unable to enter that tangible fallen world as often as she likes though, yet it doesn’t phase her, and she finds her ministry field in her daily life – in her classmates and co-workers, family and loved ones who all need that Jesus love as much as the homeless. So she strives in that field crying out for the lost souls she sees and loves so dearly. She hangs with them, works with them, talks with them, listens to them, prays for them, still every action written all over with Love.

I sit back and listen to her, shaking my head amazed. She is so far beyond me she amazes me.

‘How Lord? How is she so brave? Where does she find the courage? Where is her fear? Where does she get her patience? Her wisdom? Her understand? Her compassion? Her desire and willingness to be used by You? How is her heart so large and open and loving?’

I didn’t know He was working on my own heart through what I saw in her life.
I prayed like mad, and He heard my prayer. “In the day when I cried out, You answered me, and made me bold with strength in my soul” (Psalm 138:3 NKJV). Be careful, prayers like this will rock your world. He’s now working on showing me how “…the righteous are bold as a lion” (Proverbs 28:1 NKJV). Radical stuff, started by the radical life of my best friend.

The change that has since occurred in my life is not describable at this point by the English language. He blessed me with the dearest friend of my life, a gift and a blessing I do not deserve. Yet I can only receive her friendship and thank Him with every thought of her, because she is a gift, and the greatest I can ever imagine. She redefined living life on the edge and my life will never be the same.
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This article has been read 932 times
Member Comments
Member
Date
Jennifer Johnson
09/07/07
Precious friendship captured here. When we get down, we should look around at the jewels in our lives that God has so preciously placed around us...like amazing friends. Thanks for the reminder.
dub W
09/08/07
Fairly well done, a bit redundant, but all in all the writing worked and is deserving of the puppy pen. Christ works in many ways - through Charlotte - and others.
Donna New
09/08/07
You described your friend and drew me into wanting to have that quality of loving boldness. What a gift you have with words. May the Lord bless your ministry.
Anne Linington
09/09/07
I greatly enjoyed your article, though I feel you should cut out every mention of you "not deserving" her. We don't have to deserve our friends, and God is the one who makes us individuals, with different personalities, gifts, limitations etc.. Do your best to become the best you there is and celebrate your friend's ability to do likewise. Don't make unfavourable comparisons.
Sorry I started this one- perhaps I am preaching to myself !
Rachel Barclay
09/12/07
I found your article really challenging. You have tackled the topic of 'bold' directly. My main disappointment was your use of too many cliches. I would love to hear in some kind of detail how you have become bold as a result of your friend's example!