Friends

 Friends

I could not wait to meet up with these two while on our trip.  Especially that blond pretty women who was my best friend and still is.  She is such a huge part of my past, the good part.  

Ace and I transferred from Las Vegas to Louisville with his job of ramp service man for TWA. We had left St. Louis where he hired in for Vegas.  So three place we lived in due to his job, each one holds memories.  It was not hard to move really because we did not have children then. Louisville was my favorite place we lived.   In each of those place I had friends, but not a best friend.  

We bought our first house after the birth of our first child that it took us 12 years to have.  That house sit in a neighborhood that buses from an aggressive Baptist church came into to pick children up for church. The little girl who lived next door rode that bus and she wanted our Tara to ride it too.  Four years after our daughter we had a son and God was knocking at our door through this church.  We thought it might be good for our kids to be in church, but we were not putting them on a church bus, not after all the years it took to get them.  

That women lived in that neighborhood too and we were both on a path that would meet at church.   Finally, we went to this church, my husband rededicated his life our first Sunday.  We went back the next week and I got saved.  We grew fast due to living for the world so long, we knew what didn't work.  With the Holy Spirit living in us both we stepped out in faith and became involved.  Ace begin to drive a bus and before long he was one of the ones who went into neighborhoods and invited people to come to church.  I took a children Sunday School class. 

The church had a small Christian school which our kids went too, and that sweet blond lady put her daughter in that school, and we became great friends.  We carpooled to school, hit the thrift stores together, great recipe for developing a friendship.   She had been a Christian longer than me, so I learned a lot from her.  She helped me navigate my walk with God and made it fun.  The man in the picture is her second husband, her first one died and was I was there to help her through that.  Later she met this strong Christian man whose wife had died, and my husband married them. God has kept us close even through the years we lived overseas.  When we meet up with them again, it's like we were never apart. They make us laugh, challenge our walk with God and have been supportive of our journey.  

I hope anyone who read this has a friend they could write about.  I don't think I thought friends could be that important to me until we left Louisville to move to Bolivia, South America.  I would cry because I missed my best friend so much, lay in bed at night and laugh over some of the best memories. 

Blessings