God Always Provides

Today was one of those awesome days (this was written on Saturday). I spent it with two of my favorite people to spend time with, my daughters, and we all had so much fun. Shopping till we dropped, and eating on the go.

Not long ago someone was saying to me that this season of life isn't really the time to focus on friendships, it's a time to invest in your children. A few years ago, I believed in order to enjoy what I was doing at home required time away and my own friends. Now it is interesting how fulfilling the time with my family members is and if I get a night 'away', I typically want it to involve my daughters.

My oldest sister and I have a really great relationship (my other sister and I do, too, for the record) :). We have often talked about seasons of life and friends, and that one thing she's really seen is that once you get out of high school, it is difficult to make super close connections with people. This is ironic because she has a good number of girlfriends, but I know what she meant and  means. Those friends who are like sisters--you can call anytime and they are always interested in what you are saying and vise versa, and they believe in you and laugh with you, and cry with you...they are hard to come by when you are busy with raising children and in her case, working full-time. I recall her telling me this for the first time when she was around my age (we're 9 yrs apart).

For me, friendship has always been a top priority, and God provided. In college I had several people who were soul-mate type of friends. I was more than one person's closest friend. In my early married years, that was the same and I added a few. As the kids came and we moved some, the Lord still filled a desire for close girlfriends and up until the last year or two, going out as often as I felt I could, was a lot more important than it is now.

I think what has changed is that I can clearly see the years I have with my daughters are limited, and passing fast. (My son is precious to me, too, but we get plenty of time together during the day, so now I'm just talking about my girls.) My daughters are at such great ages, and important ones to keep connected to each other; we need and really enjoy time together. I want to keep their hearts and continue to influence them with our values, and one way to do that is relish in their company, which I genuinely do. When they are working full-time or going off to college, the last thing I want to do is look back and wish I'd spent less time worrying about my popularity and more time being in their 'inner circle'. It hasn't been entirely easy to change where my energy and efforts go, but God is providing.