Girlfriends

I am discovering that the older I become ... sigh ... the greater is my desire to reconnect with girlfriends. I guess that as you become comfortable in the sweetness of your marriage and that as your children grow up and begin to fly away - that you look back with fond longing at those years of giggling with the girls ... setting days aside for shopping together ... evenings aside for talking together ... and realize the treasure found in girlhood friendships.

There is such joy in the re-connect! With childhood chums ... with teen-age cliques ... with college friends that you may have roomed with or only known from a distance. The value of these friendships is that we dreamed together ... we believed in each other when it was only a mere possibility. And, of course, knowing each other when we were a size 8 doesn't hurt either!

Could it be that when we are with the women who loved us long ago ... that it turns us into girls again? Could it be that as we share our hearts and our memories that we realize that our life has had significance and that someone remembers our name?

In these busy days of carpools and college hunting ... counting calories and cutting coupons - let me encourage you to "re-connect"! Take the time to write a note or make a phone call ... send an e-mail or buy a plane ticket! God has created us to love one another and has given us a taste of heaven on earth in this miraculous gift of girlfriends. Excuse me ... I need to go and try to track down Joni James ... and Mary Ann Cassiano ... and Diane Phelps!! Let's see if they still remember -

Spring Conference with Babbie Mason and Sharon Daugherty! April 4&5, 2008

Spring Conference reservations can be made on our website www.justjoyministries.com
Go to the Store page and you will be able to purchase tickets. Print up your confirmation, this will be your admission ticket! Only $25.oo

Spring Tea Party at Just Joy June '07

The season is changing ... autumn has already arrived in Western New York regardless of the date on my kitchen calendar. The shadows are lengthening ... the sky has turned from summer blue to autumn gray ... geese fly over my yard and let me know that they are leaving. My girls have exchanged their pink lemonade for apple cider and tonight we are having vegetable soup for dinner. It's autumn ... whether my heart likes it or not.

Why do I dread winter so much? I am a beach girl at heart with an addiction to summer sunshine, iced tea with lemon and five dollar flip-flops. I find that my aversion to the season of snowstorms, icicles hanging from my roof line and down jackets has even sucked the life out of the glorious days of fall! Why do I do this to myself?! I long to believe with the Psalmist, that the Lord has caused "my lines to fall in pleasant places." (Psalm 16:6)

I am in a new season of life as well ... the season when my children begin to fly away with the birds of summer. Three gone ... and two to go. Although I don't look forward to the day when the beds stay made and I am only cooking dinner for two, I refuse to let the next season steal the joy of these days of lingering children. How I love hearing my girls visit at night as they share their secrets and their clothes! I love seeing their scribbled teen-age notes on the refrigerator door and their jackets flung on the back of the kitchen chairs. It will be the next season soon enough .. and for now ... I relish these days. I hope that you do, too.