It's true, I am so very thankful that I have a job that allows me the opportunity to escape the monotony of life's routines and hit the pause button on my life. It's allowed me for the past two years to pause with my friend, the one who lives in LA.
I wish you all knew the bond that we share (though there are a few of you who do!), it's something that has gone beyond the awkward Jr. High years (and Lord knows how awkward they were!) and will continue into the future where we are both old and gray. We've already planned out what we want to do when we're in our hair curlers sitting around the nursing home playing our millionth game of skipbo.
I love this time with her that I have, where I have escaped my present and take the time to remember with her, to share about the currently paused present, and contemplate our immediate futures.
One of the things that I am continually amazed over, is our ability to continue this friendship. How in the world was I so lucky to find a friend who has continued to be there throughout so many different transitions in our lives? No matter how long I ponder the matter, I inevitably come away with a sense of awe. How did we become such good friends? With just a few short differences in our circumstances, we would have missed each other completely. If she were born a few months earlier, if I had moved in middle school, if we hadn't been placed in a hotel room together... any of these things would have completely changed our lives.
And yet, these things, these circumstances, the contexts in which we found ourselves, were planned out. The purpose is continually being revealed, like fog lifting from the countryside. C.S. Lewis (how I heart him) describes this in The Four Loves. His chapter on the love of friendship ends with describing how friendship is not mere happenstance, but rather a deliberate and well orchestrated composition.
"But, for a Christian, there are, strictly speaking, no chances. A secret Master of the Ceremonies has been at work. Christ, who said to the disciples "Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you," can truly say to every group of Christian friends "You have not chosen one another but I have chosen you for one another."
This completely blew me away when I read it. Seriously? I'm left amazed that He thought of me enough to bring my friends into my life, to reveal His beauty all the more clearly, and then I am humbled by the thought that he brought me into theirs to do the same.
Lewis goes on to explain that, well... I'm just going to quote him because there's no way my paraphrase will do any justice!
"The Friendship is not a reward for our discrimination and good taste in finding one another out. It is the instrument by which God reveals to each the beauties of all the others. They are no greater than the beauties of a thousand other men; by Friendship God opens our eyes to them. They are, like all beauties, derived from Him, and then in a good Friendship, increased by Him through the Friendship itself, so that it is His instrument for creating as well as for revealing."
Which is why I am sitting here, thinking of not just my friend in LA, but those I have at home and from home. I think of how their friendship has impacted my life and who I have become today as a result. I think of how my friendship with them, and how I have fallen short so many times of being the kind of friend I should be.
Friendship is a gift. And I am so thankful for it.
