Friends Forever

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When we are looking for someone to be our friend I have often thought about where our starting point is. Sometimes we are so into the perfect someone that we miss the one that could have been the friend we needed and the search would've been over sooner. Then there is the popular person we think we need as a friend when the person who had been loyal to us was never chosen.

Maybe it sounds a little too far fetched, but what if "you" aren't what this other person is looking for? You do realize you first have to be the person whom you seek. Are you the friend who would never turn your back no matter what happens? The friend that cries when your friend cries? Stick up for them when everyone else accuses them? Better yet what if your friend's significant other starts a riff between you two. What then?

I have been that friend, chosen and overlooked, so I know what I am talking about. I have also been successful at choosing friends when I wasn't even looking. While I was attending school I met three kind souls who adopted me as their friend. I have written about these three friends in a previous blog and pray that I never loose touch.

The other day I was visiting Facebook and received a message from someone I had gone to school with. We were best friends in high school. She was having a hard time with her mother, the usual teenager vs adult kind of thing. I of course was getting along with my family but my friend was in trouble. So I did the only thing I could do--stand with her. I took a towel with some of my clothes inside and walked to school like nothing was wrong. When we met at school she asked me what the towel was for so I opened it up. When she saw my clothes her mouth fell open as she asked, "You would've done this for me?" Without hesitation I replied, "Yes." We cried together then laughed til we cried again.

In our Facebook messages back and forth to one another telling each other how good it was to reconnect after so many years apart (we live in two different states) we promised to stay in touch. When I finished reading her message she signed off as "Friends Forever" and the tears filled my eyes.

Some friendships can never be "planned" or "chosen" because they just "happen" when you least expect them. I wouldn't have it any other way, would you?

Blessings

At one time or another you will contemplate certain things in your life. Some good, some bad, but none the less they make us reflect.

I was sitting on a bench in the park thinking about what good things I could reflect on. I would have to say it would be the birth of my granddaughter in July of this year. Truly a blessing, every day a miracle. She was a preemie at under five pounds and was kept in the hospital for almost a week after birth because her little tummy wasn't the size of an average newborn.

Finally after a few days she had reached five pounds and was discharged from the hospital. I think a true miracle every time I hold her in my arms. Someone so small that can bring such a humongous happiness into our lives. A smile that can bring you to your knees, a gurgle that can bring tears to your eyes, with a laugh that can bring both.

I am truly blessed, very thankful and most of all accepting of all that it comes with. I thank God every day for all that I have and pray that He will help me through what I am in need of.

As all those blessed enough to have shopped for Thanksgiving dinner, please remember the less fortunate. Give if you can to a local church or wherever they are collecting for a family in need. Even one can of corn or whatever you can give, it doesn't take much and a little goes a long way.

Contemplate your blessings and make your goal to focus on others and what you can do to make this world a better place to live. This year has been one that I very proud to say I heard on the news or read in the paper that many youngsters have taken up the project of giving to others in need. We adults could learn something from them.

Blessings...they come when we least expect them. Share your good fortune at whatever level of life you are in....you will never regret it and sometimes the good Lord lets us see how it affected others. Either way, you get that warm feeling that you helped your fellow man and we should all remember that feeling and try to continue every chance we get...