It was another one of those weeks.

No, I don’t mean those .  I mean those.  Do you see the difference?

This those 

was lovely and delightful and yummy and full of gift giving and I was wrapped up in it.  Maybe you aren’t supposed to love something as intangible as a week.  Nevertheless, I did.  It was the kind I look forward to for days before it arrives.  Especially if I am required to do some hostessing and food preparing and table setting.  Add to that some balloon ordering and napkin folding and throw in a bit of box wrapping (I prefer boxes, over bags.  Don’t worry if you want to give me a gift that you or someone else has wrapped in a bag because I will accept it, open hands and heart.  With thanks!) and honey, you are looking at one of my very favorite kind of weeks.  

It will be remembered for it’s loveliness.

I hosted two events and the other three (yes it was a five eventer) were arranged, organized and pulled off by others.

Friends!

Not for me!  For other people, but I was included, for which I am thankful.

Aren’t friends great?

I have had a few in the (two 5s side by side) years of my life.  I was just mentioning to one of these precious ones last week, how friendships evolve and change.  Some are strong and so good right from the beginning.  Others disappear  and sometimes reappear and start from where they left off and grow deeper, as the years of our life rocket by.  I have laughed with friends.  Rejoiced at new and wept over lost friendships.

It happens you know.  Starting and ending!  Can’t be avoided no matter how desperately you  wish it.  No matter how hard you work to keep it going.  Some friendships have a life span.  A Best Before date.  But it’s the ones that last, that grow deeper and stronger and can survive through thick and even the thin of life, that are like gold.

The ones that come to a screeching halt or the ones that just fizzle out, still melt into the richness of who we are becoming.  Every  relationship that didn’t make it to friendship, has value.  It has growth in it.  If we are willing.

A while back someone shared truth with me.  I didn’t want it to be.  Truth!  It was and I recognize it more every day.  I have paraphrased it and added to it.  To make it mine.

Here it is!

“You know Pam.  Other people are not responsible for making you happy.  You will be disappointed if you think your joy will be less or more, dependent upon other people’s decisions.  We are only responsible for our lives.  God is the one who can bring real joy and you need to let those around you,  carry on with their lives and you carry on with yours.  Find Joy in the life God gives you every day.  You will be less disappointed and more Abundant Life minded if you keep your eyes on the life God chose for you.  Nothing touches you, whether people or circumstances, without having His stamp of approval to do so.”

Friends come and sometimes they go.  God’s love and faithfulness withstand all the changes that happen in friendship.

Someone shared truth with me.   Friends do that.  Slide out on a very fragile limb that has the potential to break.  My job as a friend is to listen.  Pray.  Ponder.  Evaluate.  Pray.  Sift.  Pray.  God uses people to grow us.  Maybe, sometimes, He uses me to grow someone else.

I had two siblings who were older than me by a ways.  They left (me) when I was still in elementary school and that

makes me not only a youngest child

but

also an only child

and strange as it seems,

a first born.

Those are pretty big shoes to fill.  A bit confusing at times.  Who in the world am I supposed to be anyway?

We moved towns a few times and it seemed  it was my lot in life to make new friends.  To get close, say good bye and move on.  To be the new girl.  Thankfully I  was often up for the task,  challenges included.  God equipped me.  I still remember crying at night because I had to, yet again, make new friends.  The new girl, the tall girl, the skinny girl, the preacher’s girl, standing alone.  Friendly faces, scary faces.  Friends, foes.  friends, bullies.  These are not new.  We become who we are because of encounters with people.  We learn and live and know more about living and friends and joy even so.  Even though.

I haven’t always liked the goings on involved in friendship but the good outweighs the bad. Far and away.

Friendship comes with huge responsibility.  Sometimes liability.  It doesn’t work out well if the giving is all about them and the receiving is all about me, or the other way around.

To speak truth is hard but right.  To go out onto fragile limbs, slippery slopes, rough water.

Gifts that can be held are nice but not best.  Let’s face it, gifts are precious but don’t fill the lonely place that wants love.     God gives us families and friends to encourage us and love us.  That’s People Love.  You don’t know real love until He opens your eyes and you see God Love.

It’s the Best!

The friends I spent much of last week with know about God Love.  He has filled them up with it and keeps filling.  They are so full that it, the God Love, flows all over everybody around them.  No, they aren’t perfect.  Never will be.  They need to be continually filled up and as they get filled and then overflow, they get more filling so they can keep overflowing.  God is the Filler!

Friends are good.  They are a gift.  God gives us people to be friends with.  He wants us to be careful though, not to depend on them and put our faith in them and be so focused on them that we forget where the filling and loving and faithfulness come from.  Really.

It’s God Love that matters and the rest is extra.  It’s blessing!

Friendship is blessing.  Life would be less lovely without it.

There’s a song that goes like this

Every blessing you pour out I’ll turn back to praise.

I am praising tonight.  Not because life is perfect.  Not because I have only happy prospects for the future.  Praising because God has filled me with a lot of Him.  I know God Love and because it is big and strong and filling and flowing, out, I can share it with

friends.

Easy and delicious.

I ate something similar at a local restaurant.  It was so good I have attempted to recreate it.

Lemon Blueberry Dessert.