Never good to be crazy alone-Meredith Gould

Again, I have no pictures. I promise (maybe) to do better on future trips. I'll write "remember you have a blog" on my arm or something. Meanwhile, I left Oregon Wednesday headed through Denver (OH my COLD!) and straight to Baltimore to spend time with the fabulous Meredith Gould.

What? You don't think you can meet someone on a prayer channel on twitter (@Virtual_Abbey), yak on-line via various forms of social media, talk on the phone twice (I think), meet in real life and now be IRL friends? Well then you don't know anything because that's exactly how it happened! :)

I can count on one hand the people in my life I feel like I could talk to about absolutely anything. Securely added to that elite circle is Meredith. As I was answering an e-mail to her yesterday, asking her a question on Twitter and chatting on Skype-simultaneously-I thought to myself-WHO did I talk to before!?!? :)

I love those people who show up and feel like they've always been there. People that you can't remember what your life was like before they arrived. People that drop in at a God appointed time and you instantly treasure them as a gift.

I think I spent the whole week talking, but my favorite part of these days was listening. She has great stories, excellent God timed wisdom, and the best humor to bring it all together. I could have listened to her talk for days, maybe weeks.

I have no intention of listing ANY details of what we discussed on here at least right now. I'm still processing all of that anyway. But, I will say in an amazingly indirect way, I left these days feeling like I'd been given permission to live my life. Permission to set (and keep) good boundaries. Permission to make God priority 1. Permission to love God with everything, to worship Him without apology in whatever way makes sense for this life in this season, and to not look back-except to laugh. Maybe I already knew all that but maybe I really, more than I realized, needed to hear it.

I can't put words to how good it was for my heart and soul to be there. It should not come as a surprise at this point in the week for me to disclose that yes, I cried, on the plane almost all the way to Georgia. It was that kind of a week. Soul discussions are the best. I was miserably sad to see them come to an end.

It was a week I may very well cherish for the rest of my life and I'm very, very grateful.

I'm fairly certain for years to come whenever I hear a fire alarm......I'll smile.