Friends - new and old.

Last night I had the privilege to be in the room with 4 women who
I have known nearly 25 years but haven't seen in awhile.
High school and college friends who gathered to reconnect and remember.
In fact, as I sat beside my college roommate, a woman I haven't seen for over 20 years,
I kept thinking...
         "It's like she just walked in from microbiology lab".
She was, and is, full of life and joy and -- she's really funny.

Every person in the room is living this full, glorious, crazy,
"what in the world is coming next" kind of life.
Kids leaving for college, daughters getting married,
businesses being built, classrooms being managed, households being run,
and one of us (no names here, Jillynn) with a toddler still at home!

And other than the 17 children we have between us and
the combined age of, well... A LOT,
nothing's really changed.
But actually, that's not true -- when you listen beneath the surface,
you could hear that everything has changed.

There has been amazing and yet difficult work taking place in all of us.
While we've been navigating life, raising children, loving husbands, and
figuring out how to best honor extended family and friends...
we've been living lives we hope will bring the Father glory.

Once last night I closed my eyes and we were 19 again.
Laughing at something stupid I had done, listening to each
others hopes and dreams, crying over something really difficult one of us
was facing, and then laughing again.

I'm honored to know these women.
To be 45 with them.
Glad that some things never change...
but then, grateful other things do.