FaithSpeaksForever/ Faith's Thoughts Expressed: October 2013

Every one needs a Spiritual prayer buddy in their lives. Someone who will carry you and you carry them in prayer (Eccl 4: 10-12) Someone who will hold you accountable for your life and will not hide from you when you are going off the tangent.

I have been blessed with such a person in my life. All my life I wished for someone I could pray with and relate with about God. I do have great friends I love and there is one who invited me to her church years ago where I accepted Christ but I never had a friend to walk with in the Lord (I've grown my whole life as a church-goer without knowldge of what being born again was)

I learnt that real friendship weathers the worst storms. I did not know that until I met Lerato Beloved Mahlanya. I have been intending to write this blog especially for her and other ladies out there to know how to sift real friends from not so real friends. I just could not find time yet but I managed today.

Lerato is a very beautiful lady who loves God and her son very much. I love the woman she has become. I always loved how people would call her for advice. Because we worked in an open plan office I could hear how she would tell them the truth they probably did not want to hear. So from that I started telling her my deepest issues and she would keep them between us. I realized she could be a great counsellor one day. I also admired her work ethics. When it was time to work she will not entertain conversations. I tried working like her but realized it's a gift she has so I stuck to my own routine. Lerato is very strict. I admired how she respected her granny's house by not letting young men rock up at the house (ladies note this down). She has never confused her son by introducing wannabe-men to her young son (another note ladies). I learned a lot from her what mothers do. Being a single mother never drove her to searching for a baby-daddy to marry but it has matured her into a strong, level headed woman of God.

When I first started my new job at Old Mutual in 2008 I saw a lady who looked very familiar to some young girl I knew from the high school I went to. I was right it was her. You know it is never a coincidence for your path to cross with someone you were never really close to in your past. Lerato and I did not foresee that. We thought we were just going to be work colleagues. However because we happened to share the most valuable thing in common we had something to relate to each other about: that was our love for church. We would always share about the Sunday's teaching every following Monday.

My relationship with Lerato actually came to being when in January of 2009 we decided to become Prayer Partners by starting the year with a Spiritual Growth Resolution and a Fast for a month followed by one week fast every beginning of the month the whole year. We were both searching for a more intimate relationship with God while we were still being destructed by the love of the world. We both did not know that which we agreed into together in prayer was going to be a total turn around in our lives. We made prayer the first thing we did together every morning before we started work. A whole year passed with the Morning Prayer meetings continuing together. We never planned to spend 2009 New Year's eve together but we did. I remember when people were counting down at our colleague's house we went to a room and prayed with another friend. That was a metarmorphosis stage of our spiritual friendship.

In January 2010 we both at our church prayer's meeting took a Nazarite Oath of cutting off all that we know is worldy and against God's word. This was a new road we got on together. A relationship that started in my life end of December abrubtly ended. I learned later it was God's will for me. This is also the year my relationship with Lerato got tested. We had an absolute misunderstanding and difference to a point Lerato did not want to speak to me. As the word says: "All things work together for good for those that love God."(Romans 8:28) I believe this was meant to cut our placenta we shared just to depend more on God than on each other's joint prayers. This is when I learnt why the word warns us to "Guard our hearts."(Proverbs 4:23). Because if we did not we would not have got back to where we were before and actually having grown into what we have now. Lerato flew all the way from Cape Town to come and support me as one of my bridesmaids. What an honour she gave me.

Lerato is God-loving, God-fearing woman who has put her life and plans in God's hands. It took a while for me to say she was my friend because in life we determine friendship according to hanging out together. I took her as sister rather but to tell the truth she knows the deepest secrets none of my friends or sister know. She has a treasure box for her chest where she keeps others' secrets.

I thank God for Lerato. It is through our prayer partnership and friendship where I got to know what the basis of friendships and relationships should be. If God is not the beginning and end of a friendhip or relationship there is no way that it will last (Psalm 127:1). If prayer is not the common activity within it, storms, misunderstandings, minor issues and disagreements will erode or even blow it to pieces. If friends or partners do not cover each other in prayer, evil will keep them apart. Do not force the prayer/spiritual parnership. If your friend/partner is reluctant to pray with you, you are in for a waste of time, money, emotions, tears and a heartbreak (Amos 3:3).

I pray for you Lerato. May the Lord continue to use you as His mouth piece and counsellor. We've walked similar paths and experienced similar transformation and everywhere in I pass in my life that is good I know you are passing too and everwhere you pass before me I know I am right behind you. I miss you. I miss talking to you and I think about you most of the time. Thank God for our spiritual placenta we shared. You will always be my spiritual twin even after I found a lifetime friend in my husband Paul. Continue to love God and immerse yourself in His love. Its the best beauty treatment you are taking. God's love looks beautiful and attractive on you Beloved.

God bless you without end. I love you Beloved Lerato Mahlanya.

See below how my friend glows from the glory of God. This is not fleeting beauty but the fear of the Lord (Proverbs 31:30).