good friends

My friends Laura and Jill and Melissa (who took this photo - its quality is not her fault) came over about a week and a half ago to celebrate Laura's return to Spain. She leaves a week from today and will be working with Muslims in Barcelona - just the type of ministry God has gifted her for. I'm so excited for her, but sad she won't be here in GR.

I've know Laura and Jill since junior high - and they've known each other since kindergarten! We've gone from sitting together on the bus in middle school, through the drama that is high school, then supporting each other through all of the change that happens in college to weddings and babies (Jill has four!) and now homeschooling and Spain and new houses. Good times. And there's nothing better than simply sharing conversation, some Chinese food, homemade humus, wine, bread and olive oil on a Friday night. Life makes it a little more difficult to get together as often, but I treasure the times we do.

And I've had the opportunity to reconnect with some college friends lately. Several of us that worked together on our college newspaper are getting together Monday night (somehow, we all ended up in Grand Rapids and found each other after eight or nine years) and my roommate Andrea and I have just gotten back in touch after a few years. I've found that the older I get, the more difficult it is to make these kinds of friends. Maybe it's just the stage of life I'm in right now, and it's fine, but it's not as easy as it was in college and in my early/mid 20s. So I cherish the ones I have, try to stay connected to them, and look forward to the ones that may await.