Summertime

...and the livin' is easy...
actually, it's not easy most of the time.  But still, it's wonderful.  There are always things to remind us of just how blessed we are.  For me, summer is usually when I do a lot of reckoning.  It's a time to take a step back, and look at my life - to slow down, enjoy, and appreciate.  Tonight I think about seasons.  Literal seasons and figurative seasons. I think about how very different each of my summers have been in the past few years.  I think about how seasons of friendships change just as the seasons of the earth surrounding us change.  Sometimes friendships come and go and wax and wane, but it doesn't ever change the fact that those seasons did indeed take place - that those people became a part of and, in fact, helped write our life stories.  Tonight I think about how grateful I am for the friendships that we experience for a time but learn to let go of, and for the friendships that are quite unpredictable, and for the friendships that you know will last forever - that when we speak of being with our loved ones in the eternities, they are included.  I am grateful for these "seasons of love" if you will.   For the friendship seasons that last as...however long they are supposed to.  And for the peace and satisfaction that comes even with changing seasons.   I'm grateful for friends who will make me laugh one moment, then hold and rock me in my broken-hearted sobs.  I'm grateful for friends who will be exactly what I need at a certain point in my life and for friends who I will continue to need forever. Mostly I'm grateful for one wise and merciful enough to send these angels to me.