On Ramadan and Friendship

I am exhausted.  This past week has been interesting to say the least.  I won't go into detail here, but ask me about one or more of these things sometime:

-Wednesday: a young man dressed as Link from The Legend of Zelda came into the pharmacy, asked some strange questions, and then stole items from the store.
-Thursday: I witnessed my first serious medicaI error and was on the scene at a minor medical emergency.
-Saturday/Sunday: met a classmate and future colleague at a first aid training course.

Now I am watching Bar Rescue (my favourite television program) and taking some time to relax before heading back to work tomorrow afternoon.  Three more weeks.  I can do this.

So, Ramadan is going on right now.  For anyone who isn't familiar with what Ramadan is about, it is a 29-30 day period of fasting observed by Muslims in which no food or drink is consumed during daylight hours.  But it is more than fasting, as I learned this week.  It is a time of prayer, community, thanksgiving, and generosity.  I was totally blessed this week by one of my Ramadan-practicing coworkers.  He and I worked the night shift together last Monday.  When the sun went down and he could finally partake of his one meal for the day, he invited me to sit with him and proceeded to share his meal with me.  We talked about our beliefs, about our desire to be people of compassion and of generosity, and about God and Allah.  We talked about the Qur'an and the Bible and the Torah and about how a true vibrant faith transcends the text and is inspired and moved by God.  I left the conversation feeling glad for the opportunity to discuss matters of faith and spirituality and feeling humbled by my coworker's generosity toward me.

Today marks the start of week twelve in YQR for this girl.  At the beginning of the summer I was sad about having to leave Saskatoon for 4 months.  However, I now know exactly why I was brought here at this time.  I am astounded by the grace of God and the way in which He is protecting my heart.  And the way in which He knows me.

"The secret friendship of the Lord is with them that fear him" (Psalm 25:14, RV).  Or, "The Lord confides in those who fear him; he makes his covenant known to them (Psalm 25:14, NIV).  It is amazing to me that the same God that is in control of the entire universe would take those who fear Him into his confidence, as friends.  As Oswald Chambers writes, the sign of a friend is not "that he tells you secret sorrows," but "that he tells you secret joys."

I want to catch the secret joys of the Lord.  My desire is to be so wedded to Christ's idea of prayer (Thy will be done) that I am sensitive to His voice.  "The things that make God dear to us are not so much his great big blessings as the tiny things, because they show his amazing intimacy with us; he knows every detail of our individual lives."

To my friends who have shared secret joys with me: I thank you and I treasure you.  I hold you very close to my heart.  I hope you hold me close to your heart, too, because I long to share my secret joys with you.

Besides feeling immensely tired, I also feel happy.  Leave it up to a quiet night and a pretty new peplum top to find me feeling like a new woman.

Happy Sunday,

E.