Reunion

As I've built relationships in Ohio, Indiana, Colorado and Mongolia, and as people from each of those locations have scattered from California to New York, Texas to Japan, I've come to terms with the fact that some people are "friends for a season." Some people are lifetime friends, those people who remain a key part of your life and with whom you keep in touch somewhat regularly. But that just isn't possible with every friend who touches your life. If I tried to keep in close, regular contact with each one, I'd spend all my time writing emails and making phone calls, with no time to build new relationships and establish roots here and now. So I've realized that losing touch with an old friend doesn't diminish his or her importance in your life. Sometimes you just have to thank God for the blessing of knowing that person for a season, acknowledge that the season is over, and remember fondly.

That said, it's a wonderful and unexpected blessing when God chooses to bring one of those "for a season" friends back into your life. That's what happened to me last week: a reunion with a college classmate whom I hadn't talked with in two and a half years and never thought I would see again!

Rebekah and I had a couple of classes together at IWU when she was a senior and I was a junior; we got to know each other as we edited each other's essays and commiserated through the agony that was Nonfiction Writing. I liked her a lot, but we didn't spend much time together outside of class--as upperclassmen, we each just had other activities and friends. So we weren't quite close enough to keep in touch after college, and when she left in 2003, I never expected to see her again.

Fast forward two and a half years. When Steve and I moved to Tennessee this summer, I was thinking of her (knowing she was in Tennessee) and wondering what she was up to these days, and to make a long story short, I found her through the vast network of IWU alumni blogs :) We hoped to reconnect at some point in person, since her hometown is about an hour from Nashville, and last week it finally happened!

After a bit of an adventure trying to get downtown, I finally met Rebekah at Fido, this great coffeehouse near Vanderbilt. And we spent the next two hours going deep--filling each other in on the last couple of years, sharing our hearts, talking about where we're at now--and agreeing that we need to make this a regular thing.

It was water to my thirsty soul. Such a blessing to have real, honest, below-the-surface conversation with someone down here at last! I love it when God does cool stuff like this--and I'm so glad to have a friend from a different season suddenly back in my life.