day 4, 5, 6 : proverbs 27:9 :: sweet friendships

Many years ago, 7 girls decided to have a Girls Weekend.  They had just graduated from college, were getting their first jobs and trying their hand at this real life thing.  They were young, they were dreamers, they were wide eyed and ready to see what God had planned for them.  And this past weekend, I had the privilege of spending the weekend with these girls again, a tradition that has held on for the last 8 years.  We are not the same naive young girls we were then.  Now we bring kids, families, new careers, big girl problems to the table but the fellowship is sweet and the time is never long enough.

I was so blessed by this time with real girlfriends this weekend.  And I use the word real, because I feel like that is what we are with each other.  The labels and the unhealthy pressure we put on ourselves as women is gone.  Our time together is certainly not about that.  Instead we cherish the moments we have together, sharing stories of the joys we are experiencing, the pain that seems too hard to bear and even the hard questions we have about life and what God's plan really is.  Our time together is full of laughter sharing those same old stories from college that we all remember but yet have to tell every  year.  We stuff ourselves with too much good food and ban ourselves from talking about how unhealthy the food is or how awful we feel about eating it.  We pray together, support each other...we refresh each others souls.

This year my dear friend Katrina found the perfect spot for our annual group picture:

I am not sure if you noticed the sign above our heads, but it says Memory Lane (and yes we are standing on the side of a busy road, and yes we did prop the phone up on a random piece of construction equiptment to capture this moment).  You see we have spent many wonderful weekends walking down Memory Lane...memories of first babies, marriages celebrated, relationships broken, loss that happened to soon, issues we never thought we would deal with but what a sweet comfort to know we aren't walking down Memory Lane alone.  Indeed, my friends, a sweet friendship does refresh the soul!