Heart Prints

I lost the companionship of a friend. He and I started this blog and he read it aloud from this site after I posted every entry. So, it has taken me a little while to get the courage to write. He was my brother here on this earth. He went with me everywhere in the community and we sang all the way there and back. Felix. I have known Felix for over 12 years. He was there when I became a Christian. He was there when I was baptized in the Spirit and began speaking in other tongues. He was there when I discovered that God had called me to teach the word and he and his family were the first people I stated teaching bible studies to (the ones I practiced on and made all the mistakes on).

Felix lived up the road from us for many years and I spent almost every day with him, either at his or at our place. In the twelve years we have known each other, eight or nine of them were spent living a few houses from each other. In fact, for three of those, he lived in the house directly opposite us. There was a time I remember spending everyday of three weeks together (truth be told, I went to his house to eat the nsima his wife cooked so well).

Felix is burned into my memory. He is kind and giving and champions everyone, seeing in them the best. When I started teaching in the villages, he always spurred me on. When I was disappointed with the turnout or my teaching, he encouraged and helped me to see God at work. He always did that and spoke prophetically of all the things God would do through me. In my tendency to criticize myself, his voice was a wonderful rope that kept me from falling at times into the pit of despair.

So here I am, lost somewhat. My friend is no longer here. My partner in ministry, gone. The truth? I was meant to go to Mngwangwa a week after he left but I could not see myself going into Mngwangwa without him. I know that I will have to go…but I lack the courage right now.

I cannot imagine never hearing him read the blog again. After he read it we would talk of what it all meant and what God was doing and where he had taken us from. I cannot imagine what that will be like without him.

He was so many things to so many people but I cannot speak for them. I can only say that to me, He was a friend, one you think you will have with you forever.

So what has all this done in me? I suddenly realized that I was not in control of life. I know that sounds like something I should already know but the truth is, I thought I was in control of what happens and the outcome of things, until I woke up and my friend was no longer on the earth. I could not understand that. Worse was the fact that he was the person I would talk to if I lost a true friend. So, I have learnt to relinquish control. Even though it makes me afraid I am determined to wake each morning and let go of it all and trust that God is able.

So now, I think of him doing what he always did…singing and praising God, without the worries of life and the pains that accompany it. I think of him dancing and jumping about without his limp and laughing aloud in heaven. I was listening to a wonderful song the other day and I thought how Felix would have made me play it over and over again and I thought of how he was missing that song… until it dawned on me that the songs he now hears are awesome and more beautiful than anything we could sing down here. I realized that he was missing nothing.

But me, well, I miss my friend, my ministry partner, my encourager. He helped me to believe that we could do this…going out into the villages and making Jesus known. Sometimes when I felt that the people had not truly received, he was the voice that said “they heard and change is coming”.

Everytime i sing i miss his voice that would so what he did, cushion and accompany mine, as he did in life. and if this is beginning to sound like he was an angel, this is not my intent. he was simply a man...but he was all that I have said, without exaggeration. He was my friend. i miss him.