friends

Friends and “church family” are like air – they are vital in my life. They encourage, hold me accountable, instruct, and keep me reaching for excellence. They teach, love, appreciate, help me stay steady in the storms and bring me great joy and laughter. Friends come along side – they mourn, laugh, and cry with me and bring me excitement and delight from the things they do in their lives ….and “just because” they are. Friends can be the hands, feet and heart of God. They are often that for me.

Friends come into your life for seasons and for reasons (as I recently heard at a dear friend’s funeral). I have often thought of life like a journey down a river. Sometimes people are on that river with you. Sometimes you stop at the shore; sometimes they stop at the shore. Sometimes the current separates you and sometimes you just go in different directions.

I struggle to really live in the “now” and enjoy friends in the moments that God has given me with them. Life is fragile and the sting of separation, death and illness is still a reality.  I find that this is true all the more as the years go by.

I cannot say how much friends mean to me, how much I need them and all the ways I love them. That is Deeper Than Words can go. I can say that I have come to see that people, and especially really good friends, are the gold, silver and jewels of life.

Here are some of my friends
and some of the things they are into:

Peter Vantine
www.petervantine.com

Kenny Lewis
www.mixedemotionsmusic.com

Eric & Robin Lindahl
www.NYTSN.net
www.bwag.net

Nancy Tutunjian Berger
www.ntbmusic.net