Wednesday Wonder

Friends. Old friends, new friends. Girlfriends, boyfriends. Friends we haven’t met yet. Friends who have slipped from our lives in a variety of ways. There are many types of friends.

As those first few words came out on the page, thoughts of the opening of one of my favourite movies (yes, it has issues but I still like it), Love Actually, ran through my head. Hugh Grant’s character, who is the prime minister of Britain, speaks of friends as we see people greeting one another at an airport.

There are as many ways of being friends as there are people. We each define our friendships in our own ways.

My mother had an old friend, whom she did not meet until I was in my late teens. They had been pen pals since about the third grade. Her mail-based friend was from England. They eventually met when they were both at a place in their lives where they could find the time and money to travel across the ocean to see one another. But, they were friends, make no mistake. Had it been possible, they would have been bridesmaids in each other weddings. They shared all their secrets as they were growing up. They were very close, they just hadn’t actually met in person yet.

These days, that happens often thanks to the internet. At least with Mom and Fid (not sure what that was short for), knew for certain who the other was because the schools were involved in connecting them. These days, we can’t be so sure all the time.

When these two women finally sat in the same room together, I am told, they just started talking like they were in the middle of an ongoing conversation and had just spoken yesterday. They were. That sounds like old friends to me.

Think about how you and the people you think of as old friends interact when you get together. Probably in a similar manner. Our old friends know so much of our story, they have journeyed with us along the way. They have been supports and sounding boards, they have laughed and cried with us. They have just been there, sometimes for as long as we can remember.

Then there are the new friends. Throughout our lives we are making new friends, if we allow ourselves to do so. Making friends as we get older can become more difficult. The friends we grew up with know the stories and we can identify our commonalities. As we make new friends, that can take a little more work. But it is still the commonalities that bring us together.

Sometimes it is because our lives are in similar places. We are friends with the parents of our children’s friends, or other parents whose children are at the same school, same afterschool and extracurricular activities. Something brings us together.

I have a friend who can tell you the exact date we met and how we became friends. Why? Because we met as we began work on a project together. We had the same passion for the work and the meeting, and subsequent friendship, sticks in our minds. We have remained friends even after the work which brought us together was completed. By then, we had laughed, cried, yelled and been frustrated together. Those things tend to forge the bonds.

Have you thought about your friendships lately? Maybe you have gathered with some friends. Maybe you have run into one another somewhere unexpectedly. Maybe you have recently lost a friend and thoughts of them enter your mind at times. Maybe you have been hoping to forge a bond with someone you would like to call friend.

Friends can come into our lives for many reasons or seasons and then fall away. Some come and stay a life time.

Isn’t it wonderful that God has created so many different and interesting people for us to find and call friend? For no matter who we, or they are, we are all connected by the life force that has created and is creating. We all have in common that we have a divine spark of the Creator within us. We can all become friends.

One of my favourite sayings is: A stranger is only a friend I haven’t yet met.

Maybe today we will make a new friend.