30 Day Photo Challenge: Day Two

Day 02 - A picture of you and the person you have been closest with the longest.

We knew how to do BIG hair!

This picture was taken our senior year in high school, but my friendship with Andrea goes back much further than May 1986.  I think the first time that I met her, I was six years old.  Her mother brought her over for a play date.  We bonded immediately and have been friends for life ever since.

Andrea is a red head and I am a brunette.  I stand about 5'3" tall and she is about 5'8".  We are quite the combination.  When we were little, my grandfather enjoyed telling people that we were both his grandchildren.  He loved how people reacted to our striking differences.

I pulled out my high school yearbook today. Here were Andrea's words to me. "One thing I am sure about is our friendship.  It has lasted 12 long years and it is just beginning.  I know that it is strong enough to last throughout whatever life throws our way or where it takes us."  We had no idea at the time how prophetic her words would be.  We both assumed that our difficult life moments would be things such as dealing with difficult children  and losing our parents.  Never in a million years did we think that we would face the two big Ds:  Death and Divorce.  Andrea lost her husband when he was thirty nine years old after he fought a long, courageous battle with cancer.  I lost my marriage of over two decades to the epidemic of divorce.

I cannot help but wonder, did God destine us to be best friends because He knew the trials that we both would endure?  I don't know.  That could be argued for hours on end between stubborn theologians.  This is what I do know.  We have both suffered great loss, and we have both survived.  I thank God for my feisty friend, and I love her dearly.  No matter what, she knows how to make me feel better.  I hope that I do the same for her!

Proverbs 17:17 (New International Reader's Version)

A friend loves at all times.
He is there to help when trouble comes.