Welcome to Buoy, a Life in Deeper Water podcast.

Episode 25. A Best Friend Reclaimed (God’s goodness endures)

(click here to listen now)

Hello human.

What if I view life as my revolution around the Son of God? Making my circular journey back to who I was created to be by God. To return to our Maker, a point that by this logic, will be divinely familiar because we have been there before.

It’s the journey around, drawing closer and closer to my Creator. And if you remember, gravity gets stronger the closer objects get to each other. The closer I am to God, the stronger the gravitational pull to His nature is.

As if God is saying: “Remain in the spiritual orbit I set you on, and you will come back to who I created you to be.”

This episode, #25, marks a “faith” milestone on my beach. We are one quarter of the way on mywitness99 journey. Thank you for being part of it. I am always available if you want to personally connect: deeperwater@kathrynbise.com

I’ve said many times, the purpose of BUOY is outreach to those I have worked with, those I have loved that I have not shared my witness with… the podcast casts a broader net, followed by my personal one-on-one outreach.

Today I am sharing the first of a series of witness connections and conversations along the way.

With this one, I am celebrating how God’s goodness endures.

Give Me One Good Friend, Lord

When we relocated to the Outer Banks in March 2020, like everyone else, we didn’t know it was a long-term thing. As the pandemic began to dig a deep hole in my days that became weeks, months, a year, I started to pray, “Lord just give me one good friend, someone, I don’t know, like me. Someone I can know deeply.”

And with everyone I met, I asked that question. But there seemed no clear choice or evolution in that direction.

Then one day, I was sorting through my inspiration bag—a collection of writing, photos, mementos, stuff that had meant enough to survive coast to coast moves, twice to NYC, three NYC apartment moves, landing here on the wild, so wild North Carolina coast. Landing here, in my library nook, on one December afternoon in 2022.

It was a card, from my high school best friend, sent to me while I was in college in East Texas. She had closed her note with “I still love you very much Kath and you’re my sweetest Pal. I realize with all the sweet girls right there, you may be drifting away for a while. I understand but I hope we can strengthen our friendship and understanding this summer.”

It was as if I had just received it. I could immediately remember her nature, though I didn’t understand referencing me as sweet… since that is not how I see myself. I would say that she was the best of my friends. This is my way of saying I was hard to get close to. I was good with making my lone way, most of the time.

But in rereading that card, it was as if I could hear her, 50 years later. I understood it, I appreciated it more now. Maturity does that. When I first received it, I was so distracted. I had a new college roommate, and we were pretty inseparable. I had my dancing, freedom from a childhood I was all too glad to leave behind, and a future that was certain to be full of adventure.

At the time I received the card, age 18, I knew in my heart that I was more than drifting. I was changing rivers, and I did not foresee ever going back to my childhood home and relationships. We both had a Jesus heart. But I didn’t see it so clearly then. Especially in high school.

But God is goodness.

Seventeen years ago, her oldest daughter contacted me via LinkedIn, that she was planning a surprise for her mom to connect to me in celebration of her 50th birthday. We worked through the details so I would send a message, can’t remember the exact plan, but something happened with my work priorities that caused me to not follow through.

And now 50 years later, a few months ago, we connected. If we were living in Old Testament times, I might claim this as the Year of My Jubilee. The 50th year, when all things were returned back to the rightful owner, and it was a year of rest.

Why? Because when her face came onto the screen, I felt like I was in high school. That alone, made time stand still. I knew that face as if it were yesterday, and all the things I loved about her came rushing into consciousness. But since then, I had navigated a family, a career, and a life far from the “maddening high school crowd.” And so had she.

How is it possible that the timing is now? Because it has taken five decades of living to come to this point.

It was a conversation filled with reflection. A few insights she shared that resonated deeply:

“I had lost track of you and didn’t know how your life was going.”

(I thought to myself: I often lost track of myself, so I completely understand.)

She said:
“We were struggling. At times, we were so poor.”

(I thought: I should have been there. Oh, the life transitions we endure. I remember thinking it is so important to be honest about what our life has been. And thankful that she was that honest person. We shared that life experience, being poor—at different times in our lives, though).

And it went on, with clarifying, questioning, and just catching up subconsciously with the sense of being with someone from your past.

What is Our Relationship, Lord?

When I asked where she is now in her faith walk, she shared that when she retired from teaching, she asked this question:

“What are we doing here Lord, what is our relationship?”

When she told me that, I immediately tucked it deep into my heart, thinking that is an “every morning” question I should ask myself when I wake up.

And with that I remembered that we are both seekers. And students. Who have survived a 50-year hiatus.

I couldn’t really remember if we talked about God in high school, and we spent some time thinking about how that all played out over our three years together. It was intriguing to hear her reference a God conversation we had in my downstairs tv room. I do not remember, but she said I was receptive.

And the other day as we returned to the revolution idea, and the power of reclaiming, she referred to a book she was reading, the idea of free will, our choice. She said, “Jesus then paid the price for us to have life and fellowship with the Heavenly Father again/circle back to. But, in disobedience, back in the garden, we still paid the price for the ‘freedom to choose’ this precious gift He offers. Her point, that we must choose the price Jesus paid. And then we agreed, “so Jesus can reclaim our heritage as children of God.”

How Are We Reclaimed, Lord?

The word “reclaim” is not used much in the Bible. One example is in Isaiah 11:11:

In that day the Lord will reach out his hand a second time to reclaim the surviving remnant of his people from Assyria, from Lower Egypt, from Upper Egypt, from Cush, from Elam, from Babylonia, from Hamath and from the islands of the Mediterranean.

And, in the New Testament, in the International Standard Version,

1 Tim 1:15 (ISV) says,
This is a trustworthy saying that deserves complete acceptance: To this world Messiah came, sinful people to reclaim.

The reason I love “reclaim” is because to me, it means Jesus is returning me back to God’s goodness. Something lost, then regained.

God made us good. He is the Creator.
God made us with free will. We chose wrong. So.
Jesus must reclaim that which God made good for His Father’s Kingdom.

It is a restoration of God’s story. He restores us through relationships.

1 Peter 5:10
10 And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm, and steadfast.

God always wanted us to be a part of His family and in His Kingdom. Through Christ’s redemption we are brought back into our Father’s story.

Colossians 1:13-14
13 For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

When He rescues us, well, it was as if God reached back 50 years to reclaim my best friend for me. That’s personal. At a time when we need each other in different ways. As I work on a longer work, writing about childhood memories, her presence helps awaken my focus in a way only she can do.

And recently, she shared: “You make who I am and what I care about feel worthwhile. It’s God in you, but thank you anyway.”

I am Coming Back to You, Lord

What a revelation in my revolution, that when someone sees God, through me, it is restoring my divine nature. It is a beautiful part of my journey back to my Creator.

And I respond with gratitude, because, well, ditto, to seeing God in her. No wonder I still can’t describe the feeling of seeing her face after all those years. God is in the house. I feel that way about my family too.

Since BUOY is all about witnessing, here’s an affirmation:

Our witness is how much of God’s nature others see.

Yet, the past is always a little bit of a mystery, isn’t it?

We block memories, forget people, what we were like—so others are at times left to uncover the attic memories, and parts of us we have forgotten. We help each other remember the goodness, yes? God’s goodness.

I have so much more to seek about the power of reclamation, restoration, and how important it is to know that we have a divine origin that we are returning to. But right now I would say this, human: reclaim the goodness God has for your life.

If you envision a spiritual orbit, something like what I describe, remember that the closer you are to your center, to God, the stronger the gravitational pull. There are all types of relationships for God to reclaim. When relationships run quiet, they do so on God’s timeline. They are not limited to our own. His timeline is the one that matters. He can join, mend, merge, resolve, re-unite beyond all barriers.

Not just friends from 50 years ago, or high school, whenever that was for you.

It is not always about telling your life story, it is about returning to a part of that story that held goodness from God, and letting Jesus reclaim the goodness in that relationship for you. It is part of the story God created about us, that we are returning to in our faith walk.

God cued me 17 years ago, but I just responded to it a few months ago, at the end of 2022.

Reclaim My Relationship, Lord

You can do it. Reclaim a relationship by sharing who you are now, and trusting in the divine connection God will create across your timeline, your silence, your distance, the consequences.

Maybe it is an existing relationship, that you pray for Jesus to reclaim it, and show you the goodness that has been forgotten.

It could be that you do not have or are questioning if you have a relationship with Jesus, the Great Reclaimer. I can tell you three things:

1. God created you in His image.
2. Jesus is ready to reclaim who God created you to be.
3. Open the door to be reclaimed.

Because we have a Savior who does this for us.

My high school friend and I: we circled around, and around, our separate spiritual orbits for 50 years. So, here’s how I think about it: when we were at the right distance from God, His gravitational pull aligned our path toward His Kingdom.

By this I mean, although there was some chronological catching up, it happened in light years. When Jesus reclaims your relationship, it starts with the right here, the right now, on a spiritual walk together.

God has perfect timing.

I am learning more about myself now, because she knew me then.

God is timeless.

And God’s goodness… leaves me breathless.