A Bouquet of Friends

I don’t really have much to write about this week, which is why there has been a lot of silence on this end of cyper space. Life has been rather routine lately – work, gym, dinner, sleep – and the weekends are spent cleaning, reading, going to church and watching the occasional movie. So, as you can tell, not very exciting. You probably do these same things so why would you want to come here to read about that?

I wanted to write a post about friends today, probably because I had my closest girlfriends over for dinner last night and they have all been on my mind and in my prayers for one reason or another recently. Even though we communicate through email on a weekly, sometimes daily, basis, it’s much better to have the face-to-face time in this crazy electronic based 21st century world we are living in.

I am extremely thankful to God who has abundantly blessed me with a plethora of friends, many who live close; others who live far away. Without friends how would we make it through the daily trials of our life? The old joke goes something like, thanks to my friends I’ve saved a ton of money in therapist bills; but, if you really stop to think about it, it’s not really that much of a joke. Friends (true friends) will and should want to be there for you in all situations, both good times and bad. They listen to your problems, cry with you through hard times and laugh with you during happy times. Friends are there to pick you up when you fall and knock you down a notch or two if you happen to need it. If you stop to think about it, the love and support we receive from our friends is actually God sending us love and support through our friends.

I wanted to take this opportunity and this outlet to thank you all for the love and support you have shown me recently. Thanks to those of you who prayed for Tony to find a new job after he was laid-off in July. A lot of you emailed and called and asked about him often. He found a job in Florida and is working there for now. Being from the Huntsville area, he would obviously like to find a job in Huntsville, but he plans to stay in Florida until an opportunity in Huntsville becomes available to him.

As for me, while I may not have seen you personally, I have felt your prayers and your love, all of which have helped me cope with and put into perspective the end of my relationship with Tony. In the grand scheme of things my heartache isn’t that significant, and I am thankful to those of you who took time out of your day to pray for me, send me a note, leave a comment, or send an email. I am still working through the sadness and most days are better than others.

You may have figured out that Tony and I have made the very grown-up decision to be friends; for which I am also thankful. When I started writing today, I didn’t even think that I would end up closing with this. My main point was that I just wanted to say thank you to all of you who I may not see on a regular basis. Many years ago I taught a Bible class to a group of junior high girls and used the following analogy. Friends are like flowers. A flower on its own is nice, but when we gather a flower here and a flower there, we end up with a beautiful bouquet of flowers and aren’t more flowers lovelier than just one or two. We can never have too many friends, even if they come in the form of an ex-boyfriend. Thank you for being my friend.