They hold it like a treasure. They hold it with lots of trust wrapped up like so much fine, pink tissue paper. Today we are all telling our stories about what it feels like to trust a friend. And not trust a friend. It’s a project I’ve been working on for nearly a year now.
You’re invited. Just as you are. So let’s spend our five minutes of writing today, sharing about community. Fight it, love it, hate it, hurt or healed by it, we were certainly built for it.
Set a timer and just write. Don’t worry about making it just right or not.
Go all in with your words.
Are you ready?
2. Link back here and invite others to join in.
3. Please visit the person who linked up before you & encourage them in their comments.
OK, are you ready? Give me your best five minutes on:
Friend
GO:
When I hear that word friend I think of two songs. One is by Michael W. Smith called, "Friends." I have been blessed in my life with people I call friends. On my sixtieth birthday my friend, Susan made me a photo collage with some of these lyrics on it. I cried when I looked at the pictures of our lives together. We have been friends since I was five....fifty-five years. the other is an old hymn called, "What a Friend We Have in Jesus." I began writing today and it made me think about the friends I have and have had....long time ones...Susan and Carol from childhood we all went to Kindergarten together and graduated together. We stayed friends no matter where we lived. Family friends....cousins who are like sisters. We know so much about each other that we would have to kill each other if a secret got out. We always had each other's backs, fought like heathens....yet fought others if they messed with one of our sisters in crime. Then I must add Deborah, Diane, Dian, Harriet, Regina, Lynn (et al) from child bearing years. We were church friends, parent friends, loved each other's children like our own kind of friends. As I aged some friends left, new ones came. I have school friends that in the twenty+ years I have taught have carved out their own special place in my heart. They were there when I lost my parents, when I divorced, when my parents died. They held me and made everything alright. When they died, or retired, or left....I grieved. There was a hole where they had once been. As a pastor's wife (and pastor) there are the friends you find when you are sent to a church. They are the people that open their arms and their hearts and invite you in. At Rock Mills we found the Porch People (you guys know who you are) and I love them like family. I also found Beth and Renee....Betty Jean and Shirley....and the list goes on. My Midway friends are important to me as well. They have opened their arms and hearts to me and become my family and I love them with all my heart. I guess the words of J.T. and Carole King sum it up best..."You just call out my name, and you know wherever I am I'll come running to see you again. Winter, Spring Summer, or Fall....all you have to do is call....and I'll be there....you've got a friend."
Mary, Jo and I....work friends
Me, Carol, Susan - friends since age 5
Laura and I - work friends
Marsha, me, Carol, and Susan - school friends
Susan, Melissa, Me, and Amanda - family friends
me, Deborah and Jeri at Brady's birthday party.
Beth and Renee - April 5th
The McCarley's, Some of the Porch People, Definitely family!
Porch People in Panama City Beach - Sherry and the rest of the Towler clan.
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