Old friends.  There is just something about an old friend who knows you well, who knows the truth of you, the heart of you, the youth of you, the start of you.  The very idea of you.  I find that as I get older, I start to categorize my friends in my head:  high school friends, college friends, friends from town, friends from church, friends from different cities in which I have lived.  There are friends who don't fit into any groups— my best friend from the time I can remember, Lynn, has a category all her own.  There is a Bowhead category (another blog, another time!)  There is a Lisa-and-Cindy category.  There is a Beth/Toby/Cindy/John group.  How lucky am I?  
    We celebrated my husband's 40th birthday recently, and some of his categories came together, and as I watched, I was moved by the old friends who haven't wavered in their relationships with my husband.  They remain silly.  They remain the people in the photographs that adorned the collages that evening.  Those boys in the pictures, in the gym shorts and tube socks, the glasses and the braces, are now grown men in golf shirts, with children, who helped me move heavy things, but remain 7th-grade boys in their souls.  The college friends are now married and busy but remain the same people that we hung out with in the dorms, that we met Uptown for dinner.  
     I watched the old friends meet the new friends, and I realized why we have been drawn to our newer friends.  They are just like the old ones.  Loyal.  Honest.  True.  Silly.  Dependable.   They mixed well.  They seemed to like each other, and I loved seeing them all in one place.  The friendships that my husband has maintained had a palpable feel that evening.  Like one big heartbeat on our deck.
    As Adam worked the crowd, one of my good friends (from the Lisa-and-Cindy category) said to me, 
    "I like meeting Adam's old friends.  They're so loyal."  
    "Like you," I said.  "You know that's what he always says about you."
    She had no idea.  But I did.  
    I love to reflect on the idea that people come into our lives for a reason.  At just the right moment, a person might enter your life and change you in big ways or small ones, and you may not realize it is happening until you look back and say, "Oh!  That makes sense!  YOU were there to help me through that situation with grace." Or, "YOU gave me strength when I had none."  It is my greatest hope that in this reflection, I become more open to what purpose God has for me as I build relationships with old friends and meet new ones.  Old friends, new friends, red friends, blue friends—each a blessing, each a gift.