Friends

Friendships come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. This is something that has been well on my mind over the past few weeks as I ponder my upcoming move to Virginia.

One of the biggest revelations that I'm having about friendships is that geography becomes less important the older we get. (Or, maybe the other big change that has affected this is the Internet with it's skype, email and MSN Messenger!) When I was living in Winnipeg, my friends were the people on the same street as me. We would go "call on" them after school (after piano practicing was finished!) and then we would play games until our parents called us into bed. I had few friends who lived beyond the boundaries of that block, but this never seemed to be a deficiency.

Then we moved to the suburbs in Edmonton. One of the most startling discoveries of our new suburban neighbourhood was that there was no one close to my age on the street! At this point, friends changed to those in my class or at church. Sometimes we had to bike over to their houses, or wait until the weekend so our parents could drive us.

Now one of my best friends lives in China. My sister lives in Germany. Despite the distant, these are two of the closest relationships I have. It is so encouraging to me to have these close long-distance friendships as I begin to plan my move to far, far away.

There is a saying that we have friends for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. I'm so thankful that I do have some "lifetime" friends. There are also a lot of people that I know I will lose touch with, who will become a part of distant memories past. It's important to maintain these friendships while we have them. Being a friend is all about giving to someone when you are in their life. The nice thing is that you usually grow in return.

Hmmm... lots of babbling and no conclusions. Just something that's been on my mind as I consider how, relationally, to spend my last 4 months in Edmonton.