As we sat outside Starbucks on the patio, enjoying the sunshine and cool breeze, we laughed and laughed. Rather than feeling awkward like I feared it might be, I was actually completely at ease and felt like I did the last time I got to be with these friends. “How long has it been?” we asked each other. “16 years? That doesn’t seem possible!” We took turns catching each other up, going back to 16 years ago and giving the nutshell version of life for us since then. So much has happened since we lost touch with each other – much blessing, much hurt and growing.
I actually didn’t think this day would ever happen. The friends I’m talking about were very close and dear friends to John and I when we were first married. We shared community and prayer like never before with them and several other couples in our first small group experience. We spent lots of time together, talking, laughing, walking, praying, sharing. A few years into this great friendship, John and I moved to Florida to work in a church there. Coming back to visit one summer was fun, but already felt a little different. You know how things change in a relationship when you’re not able to spend much time together. You tell yourself that it will probably never be quite like it was.
God began leading us different ways, as if I saw my special friend and her husband walking farther and farther away from me until I couldn’t see them at all. Life has a way of becoming so busy that unless we’re really intentional about staying in touch with people, it just doesn’t happen. We lost touch. Continue reading
Time away with my sister and her family, in sunny Arizona, was like the wonderful rush of “ahhhh” after a strenuous workout, when the endorphins kick in.
There was much conversation and diet coke (of course!), much laughter, watching movies, sitting in the sun, walking through beautifully manicured, landscaped southwestern neighborhoods with cactus and brilliant fuchsia bougainvillea vines growing everywhere, shopping at 
Ikea for the first time, tutoring my sis on facebook, driving around town in the little pick-up truck with my nephew Curtis, playing with their two sweet doggies, singing at the piano and visiting with my older nephew TJ, playing guitar hero, holding the snake, Vinnie (!) and just plain ol’ heart-warming love.
I sat down at the piano to play a little the afternoon he was home with us and he came into the room. He started singing a praise song I was playing, so I sang, too. 
In a way all of the people in my life are like a bunch of paper ships being set out on a creek. They float downstream together but then at times one or two may veer off and fall behind or even take a different course altogether. It’s just the way it is. Life is like a creek in that way. People come into our lives but they usually don’t stay there forever. Sometimes they “fall behind” as I keep floating along or the other way around and I’m watching them sail away from me into another future than mine. So…is it really worth investing in people and relationships when you know they’ll probably have to go sometime?
Along the Narrow Path 