Good friends, life-long friends, and true BFFs are hard to come by. They are a blessing and a treasure. Even if much time has passed since last seeing each other or a lengthy conversation, you can pick right back up as if it were yesterday.
I have been blessed with a number of those kinds of friends over the years and on Tuesday, I had a fleeting thought that I had been neglectful of those friends lately and had not been doing a good job of keeping in touch. Wednesday morning, I awakened to messages from three of them who must have been feeling the same sense of absence or lack in our recent communication. I thank God constantly for those friends.
And one of those three, Katie, is actually coming for a visit this weekend to assist with the first bilingual women's retreat that will be hosted at the Northwest Church of Christ here in Denver.
Katie's and my friendship goes all the way back to college when we sat in classes together and didn't have to pass notes since she was a lefty and me a righty. She would sit to my right and we would write back and forth on the same piece of paper between us. We were both Communication Disorder and Spanish majors interested in answering God's call to missions.
Tonight, I will pick up Katie from the airport. And while today is about Throwback Thursday and I'm thrown back to the three friendships I was able to take a moment to connect with today, I encourage you to bring those friendships into the here and now - to enjoy the past and the memories, but to move forward together into new stages of friendship, new spiritual depth and encouragement.