Friends

Have you ever heard that friends are the family you choose?

I always used to hate the phrase, "These are the best years of your life.." when talking to high school and college students. Something so final about that and looming about your future.  When in high school, I thought I would be friends (especially with my best friends) forever.  I had always heard people would drift away but thought my best friends were different.  After reality hit during my freshman year of college, I just started to see friends differently.  My best friend from high school was still an incredible woman but we were just having different life experiences.  You make different friends and while it doesn't make you forget old friends, it puts them on the back burner for awhile.  Slowly, you lose touch and while that was never your intention - it just happens. 

Recently, I was in Washington DC where Chris and I used to live when we had our first two children.  We left DC because we did not want to raise our children in the crazy environment where you live in your car and politics is the local news.  While visiting, my husband and I sat at dinner one night and were debating who might still be around that we once knew there.  So many had moved away over the years.  We came to a name and I immediately pulled out my phone and started looking up phone numbers.  We tried both numbers listed and both were disconnected.  Then I asked if it was possible he had switched to just a cell phone.  Long and short of it, we decided to drive by his house and just see...mind you it was 9 o'clock at night.  He was there!  We went to coffee and became Facebook official friends.  Such joy from my husband as we had coffee and talked.  It was awesome to reconnect!  On that same trip, I was able to reconnect with a childhood friend whom I had not seen since we were maybe 12 or 13.  Another friend from college reappeared on the scene while we were in North Carolina.  Not to mention the countless others that we have touched base with on Facebook.

Whether you believe this or not, I really believe people are brought into our lives at certain seasons for certain reasons.  I can look back in my life and people I only knew a short time had such an incredible impact on me.  So, why do I bother to bring this up?!!  We never know how long we have with those friends.  Sometimes we move away, and sometimes life just pulls us away, and sometimes we are just buttheads and don't keep in contact.  We need to take time to embrace them while we have them.  We never know when people will be pulled away from us for any reason.  Appreciate them in this moment as we do not know if we will have another.  These people really are the people you choose to be in your life. 

Passages for today:
"A friend loves at all times,
And a brother is born for adversity."Prov 17:17 New International Version
"Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep."Rom 12:15 New King James Version
One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin,
but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.
Proverbs 18:24 NIV

Don't hold back loving on the people around you today!  We do not know what tomorrow brings and you do not want to regret a moment that you lost along the way to show them how special they are to you!