Through Thick and Thin
I had a friend tell me once, that if you get into the second half of life with a few close friends you’re really doing well. When you’re young, you’re convinced that you’ll keep your friends through the entirety of life. Remember the promises made to your high school friends, how you were going to be best friends forever. Read the back pages and margins of your High School yearbook. How many of those people are involved in your life today, I mean really involved?
Each season requires, then, actually provides the close companions needed. You look back fondly to the friends of grade school, high school, and college. There are the couples you hung out with when you were first married, or the people in your small group or church. Perhaps even parents of your children’s friends become friends for a season.
Kathy and I had this group of parents we traveled with for several years because our kids played soccer together. We had incredible fun trekking from tournament to tournament together. The memories of those friendships will last a lifetime, even though the friendships didn’t.
As a child, my mother taught me this little poem:
“make new friends, keep the old; one is silver, and the other’s gold”
Our lives are full of “silver friends”, a valuable commodity to say the least. But “gold friends” are more of a rarity, they take longer to mine, longer to polish, longer to purify. They’re able to take more heat and more pressure, therefore, they’re more valuable to us. We love all of our friends, but there’s something about the friendships that are built over the years, sometimes built through adversity…
So Kathy and I want to recognize some of our golden friends. They’ve stayed with us through thick and thin. Actually seems strange to call them friends, because they’re more like family.
Joey and Gary – friends and partners in life and ministry for nearly two decades; we’ve seen a lot of life together; we’ve traveled, golfed, laughed, loved, and even cried together.
Mark and Tracee – we first met them in their early twenties; it’s been a pleasure doing life with them; our families are forever intertwined; our favorite memories are getting together over the holidays in our sweats and just hanging out.
Mike and Patti – they are the newest of our life time friends, just three years, but our time together has been awe-inspiring and life giving; can’t imagine ever doing life with out them.
Tam and Kym – friends, family, and co-workers in health care, coaching, and life; they’re a consistent soft place for us to land.
Walt and Wanda – as our boys were growing up, we did all of our family fishing trips together, we have such wonderful memories; we reconnected at Nicholas and Kayla’s wedding; it creates a real sense of security to have consistent multi-season friendships.
Bob and Laura – through thick and thin, they’ve been awesome resources for our life and family; when the chips are down, or I’m just plain stressed, the first thing I think of is to call Bob.
JT and Michelle – again, friends for nearly two decades, they’ve partnered in supporting our ministry and calling; right now we’re partnering to battle for health and life
Then there’s all the staff, leaders, friends, and spiritual family that have followed us as we we’ve migrated through life; I’ll have more to say about them later…
Can you think of some “golden friends”, friends that have been with you through think and thin? Do have friendships that, like fine wine, have gotten better with age? Maybe, it’s time to write them and tell them thank you…
