Best of my days. {7}

    These posts are becoming some of my absolute favorites. I take time each day to journal little and big blessing- but looking back at the week is my favorite part of the thankful process. I like to think of it as taking stock and being reminded of God's really, truly amazing provision. He's taking care of me {above and beyond, really} every single day. In little and big ways.

  This week, I have loads to be thankful for- but most of all, I am so thankful for this girl. For 3 really full, beautiful days together in Denver. For talks and laughs and Hart of Dixie and Denver the dog and Front Range and snowed in blog designing {didn't she do an AMAZING job?!?} and a whimsical brunch. I am so glad I finally made myself buy a plane ticket, plan a trip, and see this girl. More than worth it. I love what Shauna says in Bittersweet, that there really is nothing like good friends and the things they teach us in the quietest, smallest moments. That's what I'm thankful for right now. The quiet, small moments with Lauren {and Mark!} in Denver. The really sweet friendship we have.

   

    What are you thankful for this week? Have you taken time, really truly taken time, to be with good friends lately?

 5am airport pictures may not be our forte. 

Share your life with the people you love, even if it means saving up for a ticket and going without a few things for a while to make it work.  There are enough long lonely days of the same old thing, and if you let enough years pass, and if you let the routine steamroll your life, you'll wake up one day, isolated and weary, and wonder what happened to all those old friends.  You'll wonder why all you share is Christmas cards, and why life feels lonely and bone-dry.  We were made to live connected and close, as close as we all were those few days in Alameda, holding one another's babies, taking turns stirring whatever's on the stove.


So walk across the street, or drive across town, or fly across the country, but don't let really intimate loving friendships become the last item on a long to-do list.  Good friendships are like breakfast.  You think you're too busy to eat breakfast, but then you find yourself exhausted and cranky halfway through the day, and discover that your attempt to save time totally backfired.  In the same way, you can try to go it alone because you don't have time or because your house is too messy to have people over, or because making new friends is like the very worst parts of dating.  But halfway through a hard day or a hard week, you'll realize in a flash that you're breathtakingly lonely, and that the Christmas cards aren't much company.  Get up, make a phone call, buy a cheap ticket, open your front door.


Because there really is nothing like good friends, like the sounds of their laughter and the tones of their voices and the things they teach us in the quietest, smallest moments.
-Shauna Niequist, Bittersweet