I wake up and stretch my legs under the high-thread-count sheets. The luxury cotton feels good on my slightly sore muscles, a reminder of yesterday’s five-and-a-half-mile trek along the lake. The cabin is quiet. I tip-toe upstairs to the kitchen and make myself a cup of tea. It’s nice to warm my hands on a hot cup in the chilly mountain air.

Back in my bottom-floor room, I open the blinds to reveal early morning blue skies and a glimpse of deep water in the distance. But the trees are still my favorite. Towering pines dot the view, a reminder that the best things grow slowly with wide branches and deep roots.

It would have been nice to sleep in on this rare morning away from the demands of school schedules and hungry boys. But I’m now the kind of “old” that apparently can’t turn off my internal clock.

My eyes are bleary and I keep yawning. Yet I admit I’ve learned to love the early hours. The joy of being still. Quiet. Not rushing into the day ahead but savoring what is and expectantly waiting for what is to come. Plus it’s easy to linger without someone asking for socks or sandwiches.

So I linger in the Word and with the Word.  

Soon my heart turns to gratitude. Thanksgiving overflows. I’m spending the weekend in Lake Arrowhead with three of my dearest friends. It’s Kyan’s 40^th birthday and her husband arranged for us to celebrate in a family friend’s gorgeous home. Four bedrooms for the four of us. A beautifully appointed kitchen and ample room to relax. Walking distance to the village and the lake.

It’s a gift for Kyan – but it’s a gift to us all.

I smile thinking about the slow morning we enjoyed the day before around the table, sharing hearts and stories and Ky’s amazing cinnamon rolls. I smile thinking about the conversation and laughter that accompanied us on our long walk along the lake — the freedom to be silly or serious, chatty or chill. I smile thinking about the tender afternoon tears shed and the encouragement given, friends who see and are willing to be seen.

I almost laugh out loud recalling how we ended the evening with ridiculous facemasks sticking awkwardly to our foreheads, cheeks, and lips like wet old-man skin. I almost peed my sweatpants it was so funny.

How freeing to be in the company of true friends.

The magnitude of the gift is not lost on me.

I gaze out the window and up at the evergreens. The words of Ephesians 3:20 (NIV) bubble up in my heart: “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine…”, and with this promise, a memory.

The pine needles ripple in the breeze and I think back fifteen years. I remember being a new mom in a new city. I remember loving my baby boy and yet feeling swallowed by loneliness. I feel the memory of how quickly baby boy number two, then three, crashed onto the scene and how the relentless days and exhausting nights and pervasive loneliness nearly crushed me.

I remember how I cried out to God… over and over, again and again… Just give me one real friend.

Now I’m the mom of teens, with body aches and eye wrinkles and the best friends a girl could ask for.

Kyan, Kimberlee, and Sara are my immeasurable more, I say to God.

Truly, I could not have imagined such friends.

Then like a movie montage, the last decade flashes in my mind and I see hundreds of moments stitched together in a tapestry of God’s faithfulness. The first time we met at a mom’s group. A neighborhood walk pushing strollers. A muddy backyard playdate. The first time we had dinner. A summer book club. Serving together on a ministry team. Celebrating birthdays and graduations and births. Mourning aging parents and job losses and health scares. Swapping childcare and sourdough starters.

Hours and hours and hours over years and years and years of life together.

Yes, this is often how God answers prayers.

And now I am keenly aware of the sheer grace and goodness of God’s abundant faithfulness after years of loneliness and desperate tear-filled pleas.

This I know: God is the same God in my dreamy girls’ weekend away as He was in my sadness and solitude. God is the same God in our abundance as He is in our lack. It’s quite a truth to wrestle with.

Today I see so much beauty and purpose in the slow answering of my good desire for good friends. Though at the time, the stitch-by-stitch unfurling of God’s faithfulness was often too incremental to see, too slow for my comfort.

But now? Now I wouldn’t trade His intentional weaving for anything.

I hear the shuffle of feet above me. Sara must be up and about to go on her morning run. Surely Kimber and Ky will be awake soon and ready for coffee. I’ll put a pot on.

But first I wonder where else in my life and yours does the slow stitching of answered prayers seem like no answer at all? Where does loneliness feel heavy and community impossible? Where are we tempted to give up hope that God has heard our pleas and cares enough to respond?

This morning in the mountains is one of my Ebenezer stones, a reminder that God is always, always listening, and always, always still writing the story.

For more stories of God’s faithfulness, follow Becky on Instagram @beckykeife.

Listen to today’s devotion on the player below or where you stream podcasts.

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