Best Friends...

I was a lonely kid. The whole broken home thing didn't help. Back then, divorce wasn't as common as the common cold. I only knew one other girl in my elementary school in a situation like mine. At church, no one else was from a broken home. Mama was too busy trying to learn to drive, get a job, take care of us to talk. Besides, she never was one to sit and analyze and talk about her feelings...and she wasn't one to ask about mine. My best friend from down the street had moved to a different part of town. My friends from church didn't go to the same school as me. Lonely...

But I knew God was real, and I had asked Jesus into my heart at just about every church service I had ever been to. So, lying in bed at night, I would talk to Him about my feelings, tears running down my face. On my walks home from school, I missed my little friend from down the street who used to walk with me, so I started imagining that Jesus was walking with me and holding my hand, and I would talk with Him those five blocks from the grade school to my house. Silly and childish perhaps, and yet those times became the foundation I've built my life on. We developed a tried and tested relationship, my Best Friend and I.

I read somewhere that the number one thing women struggle with is loneliness. I think that is very likely true. What a shock after I got married, that there were still times of real loneliness. Surprise! Another human being couldn't meet all of my needs. And what a shock to have friends, fail me, hurt me. Surprise again! God's Word is true...all of us are sinners in need of a Savior. But Faithful and True and a steady Rock beneath my feet in tumultuous times has my Best Friend proven to be. As a little girl, I learned to walk with Him and talk with Him about everything, and I still do.