God's Goodness in the Face of a Friend

(Tim being King Gustav Adolff, the king who founded the city of Goteborg in the 1600's)

I had a visit this past week from a dear college friend from England! He booked a trip to Sweden rather last-minute in a dissertation-writing induced stress, and thought he was coming to have a break-- never thinking how much God would use him to encourage me! But that's the nature of our God. He never wastes a thing. And after our 5 days of catching up, goofing off, laughing, talking deeply and honestly, sharing struggles and joys, and seeing as much as we could of my beautiful city and surroudnings, we both parted blessed and refreshed at His hand in our lives! I LOVE visits from friends!

I was able to take a day off of serving at the Secondhand and we took a ferry around the Archipelago and to the enchanting islands just outside of Goteborg. It was the closest I've ever felt to the arctic, and it was STUNNING! So I forgave it for being so FREEZING out there!

The islands are quaint and residential. Most of them are car-less and the residents use bicycles or little motorized scooters with flatbeds to get around and haul stuff to and fro. They take the ferry into work each day and back again. It's peaceful on the islands. Each one tends to have a small general store. Some of them have a school and a church. Some even have a cafe (though they are NEVER open, in Tim's and my experience! Haha). I love to visit them for a walkabout and tend to bring anyone who visits me out there for the experience!

A kind old Swedish bachelor (the Swedish people really are KIND) let me use his bathroom, bless him. These islands are THAT uncommercial. No place with public bathrooms, even!

(This box cracked me up! It means "goods" in Swedish, but I imagined an apostrophe and took advantage of the hilarious photo shoot :))

We visited museums, because we're cool like that, and saw everything from the world's only stuffed blue whale, to the world's only surviving Viking ship with ruinic writing!

And we walked around for miles, drank lots of strong Swedish coffee, and Tim followed me to all of my scheduled stuff. He even spoke at the outreach event Rescue Mission threw on the Saturday night! And played guitar for me to sing :)

I am so blessed by this God who knows PRECISELY what our hearts need better than we do. And so thankful for friends whom you can just rest with, share everything with, laugh for hours with, and just... rest with!

Now back to real life. Back to the raging battle. But better equipped to face it with the refreshing of Tim's visit. Thank You, Lord!

(View the entire photo gallery here.)