A hand to help...

...an ear to listen, a word to edify, feet to run errands, a note to encourage, a shoulder to cry on.

These are just some of the many facets to our life as a family or body of believers. Today I had the special opportunity to be the shoulder to cry on as I hugged a friend who I grew up with as she wept over the death of her beloved granddaddy. We shed tears together, for each others hurt and for our own. With having my own grandpa pass away just weeks ago I knew all to well what she was going through. And then having known her grandaddy myself it is sometimes hard to really comprehend the fact that you will never see someone again here on this earth. As we held each other and her body racked with sobs it brought back many memories.

I remember the two of us growing up together, making matching dresses to wear at church, conspiring to having my friend stay back a grade so that way we could be in the same one, lol. Her b-day was in June and mine in November, therefore separating us in school, her momma told us otherwise though. :) Sleepovers at her house out in the country, crawling through ditches playing hide and seek, watching Christmas movies til the wee hours of the morning in their single wide as her daddy was still building their other home.

Now we talk about smocking dresses for our little girls, discuss how to get 1yr oldish babies to sit through church services and other mom type topics.

There is nothing like having a loved one pass from one life to the next to spur a little trip down memory lane. To see where one has met, where they have travelled and where they are today.

So thankful the Lord continues to weave the lives of friends together so we can be that body that God intended and be that helping hand or listening ear or even that shoulder to cry on. ♥