Let's pray for each other...
We met in the middle of a hot July. Both in our early twenties, married a day apart, same flippy blonde hair, and beginning our jobs at DaySpring.
I remember taking a walk in the park a little bit later. It seemed that early awkwardness of building a relationship was never there for us. We just started talking and haven't stopped since.
I also remember the moment, briefly after, when she said something and I thought, "We're friends."
We shared our hearts over coffee, almost fell on the floor laughing as we sang old Amy Grant songs, played cards with our husbands until late, late at night.
For so long, our lives were so very similar. Our paths, parallel, seemed destined to keep us in the same place always.
God had His plans. I struggled with infertility. She had two kids. My career ramped up. She felt the beautiful calling to stay at home. We both wondered, silently and out loud to each other, about the changes in the roads of our lives.
Today is her 32nd birthday. This morning we had an early breakfast and talked on the shaded patio of a local cafe. Her little boy giggled while her sweet girl slept.
We shared about what was going on in our hearts, what our families did to celebrate birthdays when we were kids, and what the future might hold.
I looked at my lovely friend--full of light and life, so kind, talented, good and true. And I felt so glad just to be there.
When I hugged her good-bye in the parking lot, I cried. Those tears surprised me because they don't come often. And as I got back in my car I considered them.
I realized they were tears of gratitude. Because almost ten years later our paths may have gone in different directions yet we will always find our way back to the place where our hearts intersect.
And this, for me, is the meaning of friendship.
Happy Birthday, sweet Heather. It's your day and yet I feel as if I'm the one who has been given a beautiful gift.
As we've been talking about friendship this week, an article I wrote for Zia Magazine keeps coming to mind. While it seems we can't do much to stop our financial 401ks from dropping like rocks lately, I still believe we can stay wealthy in the ways that matter most.
Here's an excerpt:
Make new friends but keep the old, one is silver and the other gold.
It turns out there might be more truth to that simple saying than we think. Friendships have a vast number of benefits--from improving our happiness to lengthening our lives.
But while we’re coached from the start of our career on how to bolster our 401k retirement accounts, we get a lot less training on how to do the same with our relationships. Fortunately, many of the same concepts apply. So here’s a little guide for building your very own friendship 401k.
Invest
The first thing we have to do with a 401k is put something in it. The same is true of friendships. While retirement accounts require money, friendships need something even more scarce--time.
Yes, it’s going to cost us. But in the end we may reap benefits we didn’t expect. For example, Dr. Joan Borysenko told Prevention how she instructed an attendee at one of her seminars suffering from frequent headaches to spend two nights a week with friends. To her client’s surprise, the headaches cleared up and she could be even more productive.
To read the rest of the article, click here.
And when you're done, come on back and share one little way you've grown your friendship 401k with us.
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