Good morning…
Saturday night’s gathering had been planned for a while. One friend invited me and another friend to sleepover as the final hurrah of my birthday season. When is the last time you had a pajama party with some of your best buddies?
We arrived a little after 5:00 pm and started our all-nighter with some hors d’oevres, water, and wine. We laughed about middle school slumber parties, Ouija boards, “light as a feather, stiff as a board,” and putting the hand of the first person asleep in a warm bowl of water. We talked about our families and our work, our good memories and our growing edges. Then in mid-sentence we all three went silent.
Around 6:30 pm, the lights went out, wild winds swirled, and hail balls pelted. Rains drenched, limbs and leaves littered everything, and, out the window, I saw a massive tree uproot and crash down to the ground in the yard next door. We collected ourselves, we lit candles to see, and, though it sounds a bit embarrassing now, we spent a handful of minutes tucked together in her tiny half bath, in the most protected center of her home.
Eventually, the storm passed, but the electricity stayed off, and we enjoyed a memorable, delicious dinner in the candlelit dark. Before walking up the stairs with our own personal candles to our own cozy beds, we talked non-stop until around midnight.
What are the spiritual lessons I will take from our experience? Plan ahead to gather with friends. Share hurrah’s in the middle of life. Talk until your eyelids droop. The old saying, “A friend is a gift you give yourself,” expanded in meaning for me that night. “A friend is a gift you give yourself before, during, and after life’s storms.”
Friends love through all kinds of weather, Proverbs 17:17a (MSG),
Sue
