Five Minute Friday - She

On Fridays a bunch of brave writers gather here to all spend 5 collective minutes writing on a single prompt. It’s a great way to catch your breath at the end of a long week. This blessed, beautiful place where we open our hearts and let words and tears and the inner workings of our lives bleed and flow and dance across the virtual pages. Yes, this community opens wide and invites you in to share. Come and visit and read. You will be blessed.

This Week: She

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I ride home tonight under the glow of the streetlights feeling sated and full. Another night at 208 Garfield and I am satisfied. I didn’t eat much, but in the company of these women, I am filled. An hour or two of in-real-life company, and I am refreshed.

The night air is comfortably crisp and cold – autumn has arrived – and lights from the neighborhood wink by as I roll on to the sound of Sara Bareilles singing Satellite Call over, and over, and over again. This back road home? I know it by heart. It’s also the well-worn path between our houses (I wave at her road as I pass by) and I’m thinking about her on this short drive home.

It was a colder night than this when we met for the first time. Another familiar crowd of friends and I was saying hello for the first time. As we talked between other swirling conversations, I had the most curious feeling that I had met her before, and the confidence that I would surely know her better in the future.

Connection. It’s just something that happens when someone makes an impression that doesn’t go away. When you find a friend who speaks to your heart – even if you’ve never known them before. Chronology is wonderful, but it matters less when your lives can simply weave into one anothers, and you speak and think with a rhythm that is as easy as breath.

She is more lovely than she will ever give herself credit for – and not just on the outside. Hers is a graceful spirit that bends and flows to encompass those in her life – giving and sharing and wrapping them into the warmth of a hug.

She is gifted in spirit and speaks truth when she writes, when she teaches, and when she shares her thoughts. She prepares relentlessly, but is sometimes the last one to see the how her words touch lives and gives hope and encouragement to those who need comfort or direction.

She is forgiving and spirited – all in one. Letting me curse ferociously when my temper flares – she does this without judgment – but is my constant in reminding me where my eyes should be turned and what path I should be seeking.

She is one on the short list of friends I will let into my home when I have not cleaned it. She is one with whom I can sit quietly without words and not be uncomfortable. She is one for whom I will take down the masks and let the real me out – even the hard, and the pain, and the tired, and the ugly.

She is a gift I am most grateful for, and who I hope I will never take for granted. She is a blessing. She is my friend.

Friends come and friends go,
but a true friend sticks by you like family

Proverbs 18:24 MSG

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