So, I came to Houston in August…Blaise came in October. During that interim period I lived with Natalie West, Every Village’s office manager. I didn’t know Nat very well…only from several phone trainings and conversations over the last year, but she welcomed me like I was an old friend and made me feel like instant family. If you read even one of my blog entries (see this one, this one, and especially this one) from those initial weeks in Houston then you know how much I struggled with the transition, struggled with being here without Blaise, and just generally struggled to understand God’s timing. I honestly cannot say enough about how much Nat’s house was a place of refuge for me as I worked through some heavy stuff with God, and this little blog post will not do Natalie’s hospitality and friendship justice.
Let me get the “little” things out of the way first. Nat has this amazing espresso machine that seriously took all of my willpower not to have 6 cups of espresso every morning. It was that good. She also knows all of the great restaurants in town (she’s an H-town native) and the back ways to get anywhere in the city to avoid freeways and traffic jams. She got me completely hooked on West Wing and addicted to homemade pizza. Oh, and I’m now a massive fan of cleaning my countertops with Mrs. Meyers’ Clean Day spray in Lemon Verbena scent…seriously good stuff and worth every penny if it gets me to clean more! I also loved that there was no judgement about not clearing the microwave timer, my messy room, and eating the same exact thing every day for lunch.
Those things were “little” things compared to the real blessing of Nat’s house: Natalie!
I cannot possibly recount all of the conversations about many random things that we had…some hilarious and some serious; however, I can tell you the feeling that such friendship and fellowship gave me is irreplaceable. I was hurting badly and broken in some places when I first arrived in Houston, and over the course of those weeks she gave me the freedom to heal. When I was homesick, she reminded me that it’s normal and okay to miss home, so long as I remembered where my real, eternal home is. When I grieved the brokenness in my life, she pointed me to 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 (Summary: God comforts us in our troubles so that we can comfort others in their troubles) and told me that I needed to mourn the things I’d lost or left behind, and that it was okay. When I shared my deepest desires for our time in South Sudan, she affirmed my calling and shared her experiences from her time in Uganda and Kenya. When I wallowed in self-pity and stayed too focused on my own struggles, she spoke direct, loving truth to me that I needed to just believe God…bottom line. And she invited me to hang out with her family, which was a HUGE blessing in such a solitary season!
Our pastor here in Houston says often that true discipleship is not meeting for coffee every now and then to talk about “godly” things, but it’s coming alongside someone and doing life with them…for better or worse. It’s living out life together and being real…being transparent. Those weeks were hard for me, but I will always look back and remember two things: God was very real and present and Natalie was the very definition of a sister in Christ.
