Friends in High places

I've wandered through life for years praying for friends. Real friends. People who you know have your back and don't care about your ugly stuff. Not just any friends. No, Mister. I was on the hunt for THE ONE. I have a long history of desiring a best friend; coveting the relationships I see others having. Stemming from first grade when my then best friend, Jolene, moved away it's been a hole in my heart that no one had yet to fill. I wanted someone who not only shared similar interests but who Daddy Oak joked was my "chick soul mate".I wanted what I saw my grandma having. Friends that she knew before kids, friends that raised their kids together, went on fun weekends away together, were there for each other through losses and divorces and in their 60's were still baking cookies and getting together on Sunday mornings after church for donuts. I wanted more than anything to find (rather to see God put together a real life "operation-friend-drop") one(or more) who I will sit over coffee with 50 years from now remembering when we weren't so wrinkled or drinking so much prune juice. Several times I've convinced myself out of desparation that this one's the one. This is. The. One. Only to have my heart ripped out a la some alien sci-fi movie.

No more! I declared. No more will I open my heart to have it so viciously (showing just a *little* of my flair for the dramatic here) ripped out. So I rolled a stone in front of it and became a cynic of friendship for over a year and a half. Done. Done I say!

But as we all know God is so funny. Ha. Ha. and here I am again. But not. My heart has recovered and through His Grace has found a new stance on friendship. I will never find The One. Because He was there all along. I was desparately searching and begging for something that only He can provide. He humored me. Loved me and brought me through the pit of despair I put myself in due to my impossible standards and state of oblivion. He is my One. He is the only one that will probably care about what I'm doing fifty years from now. He is the only one who will never shy away from my ugly stuff. He knows my ugly stuff. He LOVES my ugly stuff.

And you know what. . . through this realization He has also put many amazing people in my life. So today after an encounter yesterday with someone who two years ago I would have proclaimed as "The One", and after a night out with two friends who I will probably still be staying up late talking into the wee hours when we are in our 60's, and an instance of realizing the love of a mentor who has come into my life right at the right time: I know that I have Him and I am thankful for His love for me and His perect timing. And above all I know that He is My One. My One.