Friends

Some people come into your life and quickly go, others make footprints on your heart and you are never the same.

One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

Friends are the family you choose.

Friends forever. Friends til the wedding rings. Friends until the snow falls and can't get up. Friend til the window pain’s are cured. Friends til the ocean waves. ...

So, to state the obvious, I've hit the point in my life where my friends are finishing their degrees, starting careers, getting married, starting families, going here, going there, driving their own cars, buying their own houses ... doing life as independent adults. It's a transition time. Like my friends, I am learning to be an independent adult - shouldn't it just happen over night? I wish! If I am honest I'll tell you that I have mixed feelings about it all. And sometimes I compare. And facebook doesn't help!

Making a batch of rolls, cherry filling for tarts, hot-dog-rolls, and scones gives plenty of time for contemplation.

Here is a bit of background. Yesterday I sat for three hours and typed out a transcript of the hour conversation I had with John Lyons for my internship. It was frustrating because I am not a typist and typing out transcripts for me is tedious work. However, the time flew by. I enjoyed the satisfaction when I stood up from my desk.
"I could do this forever," I thought.
Then I laughed.
"Good! Because you hopefully will be!" I responded to myself. (Yes. I talk to myself.)

So as I cooked, I contemplated a few things. A few things that seem like rhetorical questions to me.

- How it is that one day we're kids, all doing the same sort of activities in life (school work, some sort of sport/music lesson/w.e, chores, youth group/awana) and the next day we're here all having something different that makes up the main portion of our individual lives?

- Why is it that even though I know that I enjoy writing more than most of my friends, why does it ever cross my mind that any one of them has a better career than the one I am pursuing? 

- Why do I one day feel happily confident that if God wants me to remain single or be someone's wife, it will all work out, and then the next day, I wonder why I'm single, if I'll ever get married, and how friends transition to couple status?

- Sometimes I am excited for the next adventure life will bring and God will lead me through.
Other times I don't want to get out of bed and just want to waste the day there. :-p

This might sound cheesy. It's ok. I'll say it anyway. It really helps me to remember that Jesus is my best friend. Yep - it sounds cheesy. It's also true.

You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit —fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you.