Wednesday, December 05, 2007

Family Dating

This post has been constantly worded and reworded in my mind and I'm still not certain I've said all I need to say on it. It's just such a sensitive, bittersweet topic for me and mine.

Can I just say how much I hate when you make good friends and then life happens and you're seperated? And it's not like those friendships are easily replaceable or that they happened over night. You know which relationships I'm talking about. They're not the ones where the wives get along and the husbands pretend to and the kids bicker back and forth. It's the close relationships that the women love each other and the husbands consider the other someone to help keep them accountable. It's the relationships where your kids call the other adults "aunt and uncle". It's the easy going way you don't care that your house isn't clean or that you can just say that you are in a bad mood and please don't take me seriously today. The friendships where you can just look at each other and know what they are thinking.

I've been blessed to have been given some of these relationships. Although distance has seperated us we still think of those relationships every day. And we know if we were to move next door the relationships could pick up where they left off.

And then there's those relationships where distance doesn't seperate but some dynamic does. It's unexplainable. You put effort into the relationship. You get along with the wife, the husbands get along. The kids have a great time together. You move forward and then something changes and the close friendship that could have/would have been is gone. I used to think it was easy to find friends. And to a point it is. But finding a family that fits into your family so well isn't as easy. And when you've already had those great relationships that you want again, not only for you but for your family, it's hard.

And then God surprises you. People you've been around for a while. Those that you've never thought would have the same interests, the same belief system, the same love of God just walk into your life. And you just hope it's for good.