Soul Friends Reunited

Twenty-seven years ago I hugged my best friend Andrea at the back of a third grade classroom on the last day of school. Her family was moving and she wouldn't return to our school in the fall.

I met Andrea two and a half years earlier in Mrs. Phillips' first grade class. Andrea walked up to me and asked if I wanted to be friends. And we were inseparable from that moment on.

Even after her move in third grade we stayed pen pals. We wrote letters and talked on the phone. I even spent a week at her house the summer after fifth grade.

I have two types of friends. The first are circumstantial friends. The kind you are friends with only because you work together, or have similar hobbies or because your husbands are friends. These are nice people and I enjoy their company. But through the years the friendship usually ends when circumstances change.

The second type of friends are soul friends. I have been very blessed at each stage in my life to have this type of friend. These are the people that you love like family. The people that you can be away from for years and pick up like you just talked yesterday. They are your people. They get you. These are the people you connect with on a deeper level.

This summer my mother-in-law left a voicemail that she worked with someone who knew me. I must confess that I cringed a little until she said her name. My dear friend from early elementary school. The friend I only really lost touch with when I went to college.

A few weeks ago I took a quick visit to my mother-in-law's house and saw Andrea for the first time in over twenty years. And she is most definitely a soul friend. It felt like no time had passed. She was the same ole Andrea. In spite of our separate paths and years without contact. Even though there has been loss and pain and growth, it felt comfortable.

I found my friend again. What a gift! Life is good y'all. As Andrea wrote in an email, "I really believe this is a God thing." Yes! His timing is always right.

Thank you sweet, soul friend for finding me again. Here is wishing you all the gift of a soul friend.