I spent a glorious Friday and Saturday in Terre Haute with one of my best friends and her family at her daughter's wedding. Ruth Ann and I have been best friends since kindergarden - a very long time! We experienced kindergarten, elementary school, middle school, and high school together at times joined at the hip! I was a bridal attendant at her wedding 29 years ago. This weekend was a reminder of that time in our lives; right after college graduation, engaged to be married to our first loves, and fresh faced and innocent. Since then we have weathered together the death of her first born, the death of my first husband, the death of two of her husband's brothers, the death of three out of four of our parents, the joyous births of our four children, (two more for her, two for me) the incredible prividege we both had of raising the four children, the joy of watching them graduate from college, find their first loves, and now, one of them making the step of marriage with one more (one of mine next) not too far behind. That's a lot of life to pack into one friendship. That's a friend who is so much more like a sister. And Ruth Ann's family insists that I am a part of their family. Her mother-in-law spoke quite harshly to me this weekend when I called her "Mrs. Schaller." Yikes - it's Grandma Schaller from now on!

I pray that God has gifted you with at least one friendship that is deep, loving, and long term. Truly, the love of God can be seen and experienced in a friend; another one of those incredible reflections of God's love for each and every one of us.

John 4:7 "Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God."