Her Walls Came Down

The phone rang one Sunday morning. The familiar voice of my best friend on the other end.

I could hear the tears in her voice, she wasn't one to easily cry, but she was only human and she had those moments as we all do.

"I wanted to walk into service for Easter Sunday, I really did." Melissa said.

"It doesn't matter how you got there, you were there Melissa, that's what the Lord saw." I said offering her the encouragement she so often offered me.

Mimmi was a strong one, but she would be the first to tell you she was only human, she had her battles, she struggled with questions. I asked the same questions.

I saw Mimmi's strong side, but I was one of the few who also saw her more vulnerable side. She would share with me things she did not share with many. Told me that I was the Sister of her heart, and her Sister in Christ, that stuck even after she was called home to Jesus.

Mimmi and I talked often on the phone and we wrote as often as we could, often twelve page letters. She wrote about how God revealed himself in the storms of his life, and she always told me how grateful she was that the Lord had saw it fit to bring us together. We could laugh together, and cry together.

Several years before I had met her, I had written a story about an amputee, a woman like her who had lost her leg, I can't remember the details of the story now, but I remember Melissa's reaction.

"I don't know how you did it, but you managed to capture what I felt exactly." Melissa said, wiping tears from her eyes. I hated that I made her cry, but she assured me it was a good thing, that the story had so deeply resonated with her.

Mimmi generally was not one who wore her emotions on her sleeves, she wore them inwardly to a fault sometimes, and she went through things that I will not talk about, because just thinking about its too painful, but she and I could open up to one another, and I was more than grateful for that.

I knew the Lord's hand was in it when her walls came down, and I saw Mimmi's whole self.

Mimmi the nickname Mikey and I had dubbed her, and only we were allowed to call her.

Mimmi whose now free and whole with Jesus, who is in the arms of our loving Father…