A new month begins.

After a January I am glad to put behind me, I am looking forward to breathing in deeply, embracing the reality that I cannot control everything and enjoying the moment more.

Tonight I will be having dinner with one of my dearest friends, Margie. She and I have known each other since seventh grade and even further back from there, our parents used to double date long before we were born! Back in the seventies when Margie and her husband moved to Colorado and we had a big going away party for them, I knew this would not be the end of our friendship. We always stayed in touch and took trips out to Colorado many times. Recently I dug out pictures to give to Margie. Great memories from a much lighter time. I think what I have been thinking about alot lately is that I did not truly appreciate how relatively uncluttered our lives were back then. How simple!

And then the hard stuff for each of us. As a newly single mom, Margie and her family invited me to come out for a visit and I did with 6 week old Laurie in tow. A year later Margie found herself going through a divorce. How could this be? We were both so in love with our husbands and they were such stand-up guys. But it did happen and we supported each other via calls and letters and more visits. Both of us eventually remarried to REALLY wonderful men who took us on along with our kids, seven in all. Now those are real men.

Through the years even when we haven't talked for awhile, we pick up right where we left off. I can never forget speaking to Margie as we drove home from the medical examiners where my kids had just positiviely identified Laurie's body. I sobbed that we had just left the site at Lake Michigan where Laurie had taken her own life, still not really believing it. And during that conversation, black Jeep just like Laurie's, drove past us. As I choked out what I was seeing, somehow we decided that was Laurie's little signal that she truly was okay now, safe in Jesus' arms.

And the most important part of my relationship with Margie is that she is the one who first told us about her accepting Jesus as her saviour and the importance of each of us seeking and accepting His free gift of eternal life. That discussion around a campfire up in the Rockies back in the early 70's ultimately led me to my own decision. I am forever thankful for her prayers to get me into the kingdom. Where would I be without Him? I don't even want to imagine. Life would have been too hard, impossible, in fact!

So my dinner tonight will be filled with memories, laughs and love. How blessed am I?