Doesn’t some of God’s blessings just blow your mind? They sure do mine.
Today I decided to switch the TV channels to one that had just music…I was waiting for a particular program due a half hour later. The music was soft and within minutes my room was filled with piano notes and my mind slipped back to two young girls lying in front of the fireplace with a tiny record player that played 45 rpm records. We listed to “The Minute Waltz” and lots of other classics that we loved. The girl beside me was called Chris and she was my “best” friend. I can still see her with a peasant blouse and a gathered skirt (with a flounce and edging of lace) that she had made herself.
I was so overcome by my memory that I just picked up the phone and called her. We have been friends for nearly seventy years!
We attended Explorers and CGIT together and walked the eight blocks to school every day. Most evenings I spent in her kitchen doing homework at the round table that hosted her Mom, Dad and three other siblings, during their meals. She lived four doors down the hill from my house.
I learned a lot from Chris. Her folks had a shoe shop and so she and her older sister were expected to run the house …including making the meals. Responsibility was not a stranger to her family.
We attended Grade 13 and then she went off to Normal School. I went into Psychiatric Nursing and got married a year later.
But we kept contact with each other all those years.
I believe God put that lovely girl in my life for a purpose. She always spoke in a quiet tone, while I was a decibel or two louder. Usually I talked and she listened. But oh was she a true friend and has been one for so many years. Without her calming influence I might have got completely carried away at times…I was a leader and she followed, but always with a tight leash, keeping me out of all kinds of trouble.
So, I wipe the tears that are spotting my cheeks, remember bike rides, swimming in the old pool and swapping stories about boy-friends and I thank God for the friends He placed in my life…friends that helped fulfilled His promise …”I have plans for you…for good, not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” Jeremiah 29:11
