Close Friends through the Years

So much new has been happening in my life lately that is so very wonderful.

Making new friends here in LW, having coffee with them, giggling, and maybe making a new male friend. First male friend..he wants to have lunch with me...so it is not a group thing like I am usually involved in. A new experience. But just a friend. We talk often on the phone and it is forming a friendship between us.

Walking daily with another friend and she has become very dear to me. She's such a special lady with a wide world of interests and knowledge and I can never quite understand what she sees in me. But she says I always raise her spirits. She certainly raises mine.

Going to friends' family reunions and meeting their families; that means so much to me.... for them to love me that much to include me in their family reunions.

Making new friends in the new home place of LP. Being introduced to everyone by my daughter and knowing by the way that she is received that they love and respect her, so that gives me respect from them before they even know me. It certainly paves the way for new friends. Welcomed so lovingly. Thrills me to see the reaction people give to her and to her children.

Then seeing my old friends from school that I went to,,,, in the small town only five miles from here. Friends that I have known from the fourth grade. They know me and still love me and call me often. How wonderful that is.

Then to be loved by all my church friends. You know that they have seen you through all the changes that have happened in your life, all the sad things and the great joys, the ups and the downs....and we are still there praying for each other daily.

It's almost too unbelievable to have this much love and caring in your life. You would think that this could, and would, possibly make you "proud" but it is completely the opposite. I feel so very humbled to be loved this much. I really don't know why they love me.

The only answer is that they are truly gifts from God. Their kindness, their caring, their sympathy, their empathy, their love....have been gifts from God. And, so, in return, it opens up my heart to others that I meet. To total strangers, who may never be friends of mine, but people who I know need someone to say hello to them, to smile at them, and to wish them a happy day, to cause them to laugh with me. This is what it is all about. Passing love around that God has so freely given to us.

It makes your day complete. You feel like you have represented God's love in such a simple way....just by being a friend to others...the way people are being friends to you.

I challange you to speak to someone the next time you are waiting in a line to check out and, in some way, ask them how they are or if they know "your" Jesus, and then share something wonderful He has done for you recently....something you could not have gotten through without His help. When I do that, nine times out of ten, THEY are the ones witnessing to me before it is over with.,,,something that they would not have done if you had not opened the door for them to do it. It always amazes me! It's another "God Gift".