“If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!” Ecclesiastes 4:10 

As little girls, we love to list off our best friends to anyone who will listen. We swap Halloween candy and stickers, then later makeup and gossip. As we grow up, we spend countless hours sharing tears and laughter with those women we dare to call our best friends.

This week I found out one of my best friends is moving 2000 miles away. I knew this might happen because her husband is in a career (music) that often requires job changes and moves. When she called to say she had to come talk to me (in person, without the kids), I knew it was serious. By the time she showed up, I took one look at her and blurted out, “You’re moving. To Colorado. For a new job.” She replied, “yup.” I then tried very very hard (not succeeding much) to be happy for this fabulous opportunity given to my friend (it really is a great opportunity)… even though it means we’ll be living so far away from each other.

All this got me thinking about how much women rely on close friendships to get through all sorts of twists and turns. In fact, recent studies have proven to what extent we need each other in times of trouble. Remember that old “flight or fright” concept? Turns out it’s really only true for men. By contrast, women tend to want to nurture and commune when dealing with stress. We clean our houses, bake (or buy) some brownies, then eat them all while sharing the gory details with other women. (OK, I’m making major generalizations, but hopefully you know what I mean.)

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized that my friendships fall into several different categories. Depending on where life takes us, the friends in some of these categories tend to come and go from our lives fairly frequently. For example, I have:

• friends from church (women who share my faith),
• friends from school (women who share my history),
• friends who are my kids’ friends’ moms (women who share my parenting style/interests),
• friends from work (women who share my passion), and
• friends from life circumstances (women who share my experiences).

And then I have a certain few friends who fit into 3, 4, or maybe even all of those categories. These are the holy grail of friendships, the tried and true, the best of the best. For me, there have been women in my life who have not only fit into all four of those categories, but also one final group – friends who just are.

These BFFs know us better than anyone else, even if (God forbid) we haven’t seen each other in weeks or months. They know our weaknesses and strengths (plus our husband’s weaknesses and strengths ), and never use either against us. These are the women who tell us what we need to hear, even if we don’t want to hear it. Together, we just click. They are people who will be in our lives in one way, shape, or form forever. These are our best friends.

This blog post is dedicated to the wonderful women I am privileged to call my friends.

“Dear friend, I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well.” 3 John 1:2

We just returned from a week in Maine. Ahh… you might immediately think we are so blessed to spend our vacation in Maine. We are, but when I get on to the next part you might rethink the whole blessed part. We went to visit *the inlaws*.

OK, we are definitely blessed to spend any amount of time in Maine over the summer, because the weather is absolutely perfect there! In Maryland, it was 98 degrees, humid and sweltering. In Maine, it was 78 degrees with cool summer breezes. Need I say more? But there is more…

In the 60’s, my inlaws helped start a non-profit Christian summer camp in Maine called Chop Point. It was at that camp that I first met my inlaws (and their son) exactly 20 years ago this summer. How I got there is definitely no coincidence.

I was in junior high and my mom decided if we couldn’t afford to visit Europe, she’d bring Europe to us. So we hosted foreign exchange students for a couple of months each summer. On the day Ariane came to stay with us, I was in the midst of a typical teenage moment, when I considered all of my mom’s ideas to be crazy and ridiculous (I now live with a daughter who thinks the same thing of me). So I definitely was not happy to share my room with some girl from France.

But Ariane arrived with this warm summer glow that immediately made me want to know more about her. We spent hours talking about the summer camp she had just attended before traveling to Maryland. It was in Maine and filled with kids from all over the world (who also think their parents ideas might be crazy). She taught me lots of silly songs from camp and by the time she left for France four weeks later, I knew which cabins were on the girls side and which counselors were most likely to sleep through campers sneaking out. I then told my parents I was meeting Ariane at Chop Point the next summer.

They told me it was too expensive and I’d need to earn half the tuition. No problem. You see, this was the first major financial challenge my parents gave me. We all learned something very important that year… tell me I *can’t* do something and I will do whatever is necessary to do it. I babysit like there was no tomorrow and earned that tuition money so they had no choice but to let me go.

So we made the 10 hour drive north the following summer, culimating with a trip down a two-mile dirt road. My parents wondered where I had led them, but I knew it would be amazing. I then did what every parent fears about dropping their kid at summer camp: I got out of the car and ran to camp, leaving my parents to unload my stuff and wave goodbye to my backside. I never came back to the car and apparently my mom cried the whole way back down that two-mile dirt road (and probably all the way to Portland .

Now, 20 years later, I can see how monumentally that summer changed my life – not overnight, but over time. I met my future husband and his family (we didn’t date until I came back as a counselor in college). I fell in love with Maine. I learned a lot about who I am when I’m all alone, without my parents or any friends to decide things for me.  And I found out what it means to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ (actually putting it into practice came a few years later).

When we visited Chop Point this week, we were also treated to a visit with the girl who started it all. Ariane stopped by (as if you can just stop by Maine from France…) with her family! Only after she left did it really sink in how crazy it sounds to say: 20 years ago I met my Maine-born husband through an exchange student from France. Definitely too crazy to be a coincidence .