Make New Friends, But Keep the Old...

Yesterday morning I had a date with the past! Recently I ran into a few highschool girlfriends who have moved back to this area, and I determined that it was time to get together. They all agreed, and we finally made good to the promise to make it happen yesterday morning. We met up at a local park, and after two hours of just chatting, laughing, sharing, and chasing children, I left with the biggest smile on my face. You know when you just get so darn slap-happy that you find yourself near giggles? That's how I felt when I drove off with my kids in the back seat, thawing out, after two hours of playing in blustery, cool weather. I immediately began praising the Lord for that dear time of fellowship. What a blessing. I e-mailed them all last night and told them how much it meant to me and explained that while I do have friends here--people who care for me and for whom I care as well--I don't have many truly close girlfriends, and it was refreshing to me to rekindle those relationships from long ago. And as I told them, it wasn't as if we all just "picked up where we left off", because there's been a lot of water under the bridge since then; we've all grown, married, changed, started families, had our share of life's challenges. But there was an immediate comfortability with one another---kind of like going and picking up one of your favorite books off of the shelf and re-reading it--suddenly remembering,"Oh yeah, I love this part!" And then being pleasantly surprised by things you missed the first time around. Anyway, as we were walking to our cars, one of the gals said, "So where are we meeting next month?" Yipppeee! They did enjoy the time, just like I did! :) Another said through a rolled-down window before driving off, "Thanks for helping work this out." And suddenly I thought to myself. That's it. That's just it. All relationships have an element of work about them, don't they? And I certainly don't want to act as if I had to labor intensely to bring about that gathering, but we all had to be intentional. We had to intend on making that happen. I've been guilty in the past of saying kind of flippantly, "It's so great to see you! We ought to get together sometime!" and then never following through. So this morning, allow me to sing my little GirlScout song to you from the title of this post "Make new friends, but keep the old; one is silver and the other gold." If you have new friends, count them as precious as silver, and if you have old friends, it's worth the effort to reconnect and work at those golden friendships.