Today I am grateful.  Not sure why this overwhelming sense of gratefulness has hit me right now, at 6:30 in the morning, but sometimes it’s good to just stop and say thank you.

For friends.

I’m thinking back over the past month or so and remembering time spent with some pretty great people.

An afternoon in the park with my former college roommate, a surprise invitation on Mother’s Day to have lunch with a wonderful couple from church, sampling restaurant fare one night at an event downtown with two great guys who have been in my life for a really long time, dinner with a former student who is finishing her first year of teaching, lunch with a friend I haven’t seen in several years but who still holds a cherished place in my heart, a phone call from an amazing young woman I used to mentor who is now in seminary, a meal with a close friend and confidante where I got to share how her specific prayer for me was answered, a long catch-up email from a friend in Santiago, Chile I’ve never met in person but who has become a very special person to me.

I am blessed.  And this morning I am grateful for the people God has placed into my life.

On the days when I start to put a toe into the sea of discouragement or self-pity, I need to remember how God has taken care of me through the blessings of friendship.  And I need to remember that it’s not all about me.  It’s not all about who invites me to a meal, or who calls me, or who writes to me.

I need to be a good friend as well.  I need to look for the opportunities to reach out to someone, to include someone, to encourage someone, to look for ways to bless another person’s life.

Lord, thank you for my friends.  Help me to be a good one. Help me to point my friends to You, to remind them that You are the best friend of all.

No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you. John 15:15

A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity. Proverbs 17:17

A man who has friends must himself be friendly. Proverbs 18:24

Ointment and perfume delight the heart, and the sweetness of a man’s friend gives delight by hearty counsel. Proverbs 27:9