Why friendships are so important

Friendship.  It conjurers up so many pictures in my mind with each unique friend I have.  We all have our definition of friends.  For example, there are friends on Facebook, friends at work or at that volunteer organization.  There are friends since grade school, since high school or college.  There are friends through your spouse and children.  All these friends are important to me.  I am not excluding a single one from my heart but this post is about that Special friend.  That "one tap" ......instant connection on your iPhone..... favorites list...... kind of friend..... Best Friends.

My best friend, my husband

Best friends.....that it what I want to talk about.  Those people who don't run away from you when your life gets messy.  They have no age limit...they are all ages.  When you feel like giving up, they come along side you. They seem like Superwoman or Batman and are fearless.  If they can't pick you up, they sit beside you until you can stand.  Those friends are the ones I treasure the most.  They love me when I'm not loveable.  They do things for me without my asking for any help.  They show up and love me.  Who of your own friends are you seeing in your mind right now?

 Charlsa, my surrogate momma BFF...I am a lucky girl

I want to know, what it is about me, that they love.  I know why I love them, but why do they love me?  What makes me so special in their hearts.   Will I ever be able to live up to the image they have of me within my own heart?  Why is it we can't fully see ourselves the way our friends do?  We see our faults.  Friends say I am beautiful and I can't fully accept that.  Why?  Maybe because I see each and every flaw.  They must be talking about more than the outside of me, they must see the whole picture.  The inside as well as the outside.....

Degen ...my old wise soulmate

Ah, there we have it.  Our friends.   It is their heart, mind and soul we fall in love with.  We are drawn to people who share the same views on life that we do and who have the same morals and values as we do.  We share a love of something, a passion and or a heartache.  We share something.  We have something in common.

Elizabeth...a tender heart of gold

And yet, so many of my friends never shared the same things in their life as I have when we first became friends.  But, over time, our lives started to intersect.  Their husbands had issues, or their children, or their parents or they had troubles.  We began to see we were always meant to be friends because we could relate to one another.  The more that happened to each one of us, the deeper the friendship grew.  The more our friendships became a life vest to us both.  We had a safe place to go, where we could be understood and be loved despite the ugly goings on in and around us.  We were there for each other.  Through good and bad.  We were not leaving each other.  We needed each other too much at times.

TCU !  Carolyn, Me, Terry, and Tammy...My sisters by choice!

Ah, friends.  The great thing is, we can loose touch over 30 years, but when we see each other again, it's still there.  The magic of love.  The magic that happens when two people still care about each other.  How does that happen?  It is a mystery to me.  How can the years seem to vanish as we catch up with our lives?  I can still see the young girls in my High School and College friends.  I can still see what drew me to them in the first place.  It was their hearts.  Open and yearning to be loved in return.  It was their kindness and/or their strength.  We learned from each other.  We took the best parts of our friends and tried to let those parts become a part of us so that we could become the person we wanted to be.

  As Time has marched on, they have reappeared in my life.  They have walked beside me during the most difficult walk.  It was a walk to bring awareness to prevent suicide.  They kept me talking and walking.  They brought laughter to a silent and heart wrenching hour.  They were there to walk beside me, to offer support.  They were not asked to come.  They just came!  They drove from another city and meet me there.  They wanted to help me through that difficult moment.  Wow.......  Just Wow!

Hockaday friends! Sharon, me & Suzanne

Then there are those friends who do not live near by, but it's almost like they live with you each day.  Those friends that call you every single day after your child dies.  They called for weeks every single day.  They are there.  They took the time to stop their own life and check on yours.  No matter how horrible the things I had to face that day, they did not run.  They faced them with me.  Each and every day.   They gave me strength to keep going, to keep facing all the ugly, to keep breathing.

Friends..... They are like having a small piece of God with skin on.  They do not forsake you.  They love you even when you feel awful.  They see your heart and they love you for it.  They are willing to share your burdens and if possible they would carry them for you for a while so you could have some relief.  Wow...just Wow!

Tammy....From pot luck roommate to Forever Sister...

How did I get this lucky?  How did I find these people?  How did they find me?

I think God places people in your path that he knows you will need more and more as life goes on. I think a Deep friendship is a miracle.  He wants you to have help.  He does not want us to be alone.

 I know when all my friends are asleep and I have no one else to talk to  I will talk to God the most.  I do it during the day a lot, but I never am still enough to listen.  But at night I listen.  And I hear him sometimes.  He loves me the most of anyone in my life.  He can see right into my heart and mind.   He knows me.  And how can he still love me?  It is a miracle, the miracle of unconditional love.  The love a mother has for her children.  It is just there.  Grafted into the fiber of every cell.  No matter how much they hurt you, you can't stop loving them.  That is God's love for all of us.  Wow.....Just Wow.....

Vickie and her Daughter June "Bug"

So.....here are the faces of some of my closest and dearest friends.  They are on my favorites list in my phone...why, because we talk a lot.  We are just a tap way from each other.... You have your own scrap book pictures of your friends, your own favorites in your phone.....I know.  And I share in your joy of having them in your life!

 I pray that I can be just as good of a friend as my friends have been to me.  I pray I can can have their strength and wisdom.  I want to become more like them.  As we grow each year, may we become the best parts of each other.  May the God of heaven give and put in us the parts of him that we need to share with others here on earth.

Marcus, me and Ali....my babies and best friends

 " Oh, God, give me a pure heart.  Give me the courage to not fear and to be a blessing to people.  Let not my heart be troubled, but may I be a friend to all who need me today....amen"