Unsent Letters February 2012

My dearest prayer warrior,
   I suppose I should grow accustomed to thinking of you as Sister Mary Angela, but whenever I picture your delightful laugh, held within your mischievous grin as you raced down the stairs ahead of me to class, all the while calling back to me to remind me that I was a "glum slowpoke" I cannot imagine some cloaked figure, enshrouded with the mantel of a nun.  It's been seven months since you entered and years since you first told me that you were going to enter a convent and I remember that I uncharitably laughed.  Surely God would not call one such as you away from society, where you would undoubtedly change the world for the better?  Worse yet was the day when you told me you were entering a cloister and that we would never speak again, but I had learned not to doubt you.  Surely God had a plan for you and one still for me.  I remember being jealous because you had known God's calling for you for so long whereas I still seem to be floundering about in search of my calling.  I remember when we said good-bye and I questioned how I would get along without you.


    So many farewells filled that day but mine to you was perhaps the most lasting.  I know now that this is the life that God has called you to, knowing from before you were formed in the womb, that you would be his beloved, a true bride of Christ, but knowing this and accepting are not always symbiotic.  I know that if you truly love something you must set it free, or more importantly (and perhaps the same thing), give it up to God.  Anyone who knew you before you entered cannot help but know that there is a God, that He loves us, that He has a plan for us, and that He is watching out for us.  God brought you into my life to show me that much can be accomplished by loving every person as if they were Christ- you showed me that, my little warrior.


    I thought I had affected your life by sharing your days in school, but now I realize that you changed my life more by sharing with me your joie de vivre.  You showed me that battles, both in the world but also within the soul, can be fought and won through prayer, and I thank you for fighting for mine.  You showed me that farewell maybe lengthy but goodbye is not forever when God is at your side.  I firmly believe that you are the living embodiment of joy (if not always kindness) and I sometimes wonder if you are really Azarias?


    In this life time I do not dare believe that I shall meet you again, but in time I hope to meet you again in the presence of our heavenly Father.  Perhaps we can race up and down the heavenly stairs as we once did at University?  I pray no one notices us playing behind the organ again, but if God created you to be my friend, I am quite certain that He has a sense of humor and will not be too angry.  I miss you, my dear, and I think of you often.  Pray for me even though I know you will never get this.  I love you, my prayer warrior, my friend, my Lina.  And don't forget, hurry up, slowpoke- we might be late.
-Gabrielle