Friends

When I went to Young Harris College, I was blessed with good friends.  I went there knowing one guy who I met through ham radio, but everyone else was a stranger.  As a I look back at those days, I see how fortunate I was to have become a part of a group of guys who were strong positive influences.  And while I do not now see these guys as we all went different ways, there are a number of them with whom I still keep in touch and count as friends till the end.  I am grateful to God for putting these guys in my life.    

Of course, most of us find that our friend group changes over the years.  For some who grew up in one place and remained in that place, the friend circle is something which is cemented more firmly.  But, even then, there are some who leave and some new ones who come.  As I have entered fully now into these years of retirement here on the farm in a small community, new friends have come to take the place of the ones who were in the past mostly clergy.  After twelve years here now, there are only a few who call me "Preacher," a name which gets stuck on most people of the cloth.  It has been nice to shed the name of what I used to do and simply become the guy who lives down a certain dirt lane and is married to one born here.   

And as I think about this new place I have been put by the Father God for these days of my life, I am grateful, too, for the new friends who have become a part of my daily existence.  It is by far one of the most diverse groups I have ever had as friends.  They are all mostly real without much pretense.  And when we run into each other, there is always a sense of belonging to something new and different.  In a new land and in a new time, God has blessed me once again with special people who give nurture and blessing to my life and allow me to share in theirs.