Good morning…

Having launched our new “sue2you” blog and website on September 1st, one month in there are 410 people who have taken the time to type their email and their name into the spaces provided to the right of my blog. What fun it is to watch the number of subscribers inch up gradually. One by one. Day by day. Recently, one subscriber wrote to me personally about the way she sees “sue2you” spreading organically into the lives of those she loves.

She writes: “I forward many of your pieces…so often to my college roommate that she, too, now subscribes. She lives in Newport, RI. My sister, nieces and daughter-in-law are regular receivers! And the funny thing is, some of my friends forward them to me, too…even though I’ve told them I subscribe. It’s just completely clear to me that layers upon layers of us are touched by what you have to say. Interesting to me that the messages my friends forward to me are the very ones that have touched me to the core. My friends know me well…or maybe it’s God who knows me well. Thank you for the friendship you share through these posts.”

Friendship. I think this astute subscriber uncovers the sturdy root system beneath “sue2you.” Jesus explains our friendship-based growth in John 15:15b-16a (AMP): …I have called you [My] friends, because I have revealed to you everything that I have heard from My Father. You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you and I have appointed and placed and purposefully planted you, so that you would go and bear fruit and keep on bearing, and that your fruit will remain and be lasting…

Jesus told the people another story: What will a woman do if she has ten silver coins and loses one of them? Won’t she light a lamp, sweep the floor, and look carefully until she finds it? Then she will call in her friends and neighbors and say, “Let’s celebrate! I’ve found the coin I lost.” Jesus said, “In the same way God’s angels are happy when even one person turns to him,” Luke 15:8-10 (CEV). When God wakes me in the middle of the night, I am compelled to look for a lost piece of myself. I light a lamp. I sweep my soul’s floor. I look carefully until I find the day’s silver coin. Then I call my subscribing friends together and say, “Let’s celebrate! I have found a piece of us that was lost to our conscious mind.” Happiness increases within and around us as we turn more our selves over to God.

As spiritual friends, the LORD has appointed and placed and purposefully planted us together, morning by morning,

Sue