Two friends from Alexander City spent the day with me today. We had the most fun, lots of laughter, lunch at Pizza Hut, shopping at the local feed and seed store, and a little thrift store thrifting. Friendship is a beautiful thing! Friends are people we choose to spend our time with. They cheer us and lift us up, reminders that life is a glorious trip when we share it with people we love. “A true friend gives heartfelt advice, bringing joy to the heart,” Proverbs 27:9. We value our friends’ opinions, listen to their advice, share their personal lives. We love and support each other. Bible scripture in Proverbs 17:17, says, “A true friend shows love, no matter what.”

Pondering in the lady den this evening thinking about how blessed I am with friends. When I was a child my favorite friend was a boy. We were inseparable. Our mothers and fathers were best friends. We joined the band in the fifth grade learning to play the trumpet. I still have my All-State medals where we competed playing duets on our trumpets. We rode thousands of miles on our bicycles, even had a route that we rode religiously. We’d go to the City Pharmacy for lemon sours and cherry cokes or to his house for a drink of water. At his house, I’d get a glass and he’d drink from a green glass Coke bottle of water that was always in the fridge. He and his two brothers had their names on their bottles. I always wanted to have a bottle in there with my name on it.

Two years ago he came to visit me on Mother’s Day. We sat in the dining room talking and he said, “I probably spent more time here than I did at my own house!” Our friendship picked right back up and we had a wonderful afternoon together. No longer a boy on a bike, but a seasoned doctor, close to retirement, driving a beautiful navy sports car, a step above the Plymouth Duster he received on his 16th birthday. Obviously very happy in his marriage. When his brother died I cried with him and when my daughter died in a car wreck his phone call moved me to tears. I’ll always love him!

Never really had that special soulmate girl friend till I moved to Alexander City in my middle twenties. I met her casually several times at church but our friendship was cemented one day when we parked by each other at the city library. We got out of our cars at the same and struck up a conversation. “Guess what,” I said, “I’m pregnant.” “So am I,” she says. We got all excited. “I’ve got on Chief’s Levi’s,” I say. Then she starts laughing and says, “I have on my husband’s Levi’s.” It was a friendship made in heaven glued together with our love of books and reading, a friendship still going strong 43 years later.

She’s always there, even when I don’t realize I need her. Woke up the day of Rosalyn’s funeral and she was in Rosie’s room unobtrusively ironing the boys’ and Chief’s shirts for the funeral. She was my rock during this nightmare. When she had a crisis in her family she called at 3 AM and I tore over to her house. I held her tightly while she wept. And when Chief died she consoled me as only a soulmate can. Six months later I consoled her when she lost her husband. When we have weekends together we wear our matching pajamas and laugh ourselves silly! We went to the beach in October with oldest sister-in-law and her daughter and I’ll cherish those memories forever.

I believe friendship is a gift from God. “A sweet friendship refreshes the soul,” Proverbs 27:9. Melanie Shankle writes, “The aim of friendship is to sow into each other words of eternal life and blessing. We remind each other of God’s wisdom and provision, refresh each other’s spirit, and strengthen each other’s faith.” 

We need to thank God for giving us special people to walk through life with us. People who listen when we talk and don’t judge us, hold us when we cry, and tell us the truth even when we don’t want to hear it. Friends love us unconditionally as does God.

“Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom. — Marcel Proust