with chords that cannot be broken

I really love my little room in Chester. I woke up this morning ready to be awake, and jumped out of bed (my family can tell you how rare an occasion this is) ready to see if the predicted sunshine and blue skies had actually arrived. I fumbled for my contacts, peeked through the curtains, and smiled. They had.

I went upstairs to the kitchen for a cup of coffee, and on the way down noticed that the mailman had already slipped the mail through the little gold-covered slot in our drafty front door. Picking it up and tearing through the pile for anything with my name on it, I found a letter addressed to me from my lovely friend Lauren.

So I sat down at my desk, smiled back at the sunshine drifting through the day curtain, sipped my coffee, and read Lauren's letter beginning to end. She included a Bible verse...

"I always thank my God as I remember you in my prayers, because I hear about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints. I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith, so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ. Your love has given me great joy and encouragement, because you, sister, have refreshed the hearts of the saints."
Philemon 1:4-7

I love this. As I read it I felt a gentle reminder of how much apart of each other's lives we still are. Not just Lauren, but everyone back home. Even though I'm thousands of miles away, my family, my friends, and my community are still there. They are still praying for me. And I'm still praying for them.

I suppose it makes sense, then, that I hang pictures on my walls. And that I brought the two pictures I felt I would need to see the most over here in their frames, wrapped in t-shirts so they wouldn't break on my suitcase. And it makes sense that I hang other things on my walls, too--letters, pictures from the kids at the homeless shelter, even a piece of paper that all the Bible study girls wrote little notes to me on back in December before I left. Physically, I have surrounded myself with reminders of all the beauty in my life--people that I am bound together with in love.





















































It's cozy here tonight, and I'm reminded of the words to the old hymn...

Bind us together, Lord, bind us together with chords that cannot be broken. Bind us together, Lord bind us together in love.