March 21, 2023
The Miracle of Friends
It was Wednesday, March 1st. I was on the floor stretching with my little preschoolers and talking about what color butterflies they were pretending to be today.
My phone, however, received this from my oldest daughter who was on her way to work from college:
Car trouble rn
I am going to be late to work. I actually don’t know if I’ll get to work.
Followed thirty minutes later (I still hadn’t come off the floor so hadn’t seen these) by:
Daddy has me.
I’m not gonna make it to work
Letting Thea know
Thirty minutes later (I still hadn’t seen anything):
ACTUALLY
Nvm
I will be there right on time.
I only saw her arrive at her normal time (4pm) as I was working. I didn’t even know something was up until about 7pm when I finally looked at my phone!
Our Buick decided to shut all electrical systems down on the interstate! We had a meet in Savannah that weekend! Louis and Christina took it to the closest dealership because this poor car was new when Louis got it but has spent a greater percentage of time getting fixed than any used one we’ve had! (Nice that it is still under warranty!)
Thursday arrives: at noon, the dealership still hasn’t even looked at the Buick! Christina has to go to college on Friday. Louis had requested the day off work Friday to take Jillian to her meet in Savannah. All the potential rides for Jillian weren’t able to do this one. (So many meets would have been missed without all of the amazing friends who have driven one gymnast or the other over my three years!) We looked into renting a car for the day – so far out of budget. Christina looked into staying over with a friend so she wouldn’t need a car for college but no one could get her back to work in time and she just doesn’t drop school or work. I was going to ask Jillian’s coach how to go about scratching (missing the meet, we’ve never done that), when Louis called (I was sitting at a school waiting for kiddos to get in the bus). He had contacted the dealership at 2:30 & they said they would look at the Buick on Monday. He had told his boss he didn’t need the day off because he didn’t have a way to get Jillian to Savannah – his boss loaned him a van!
Jillian didn’t even know. She didn’t know how close she came to missing her first meet. (She did hear the story through when she’s like, “wait where’d we get this van?” on Friday in the wee hours.) She and Lucas went down with Dad and had a great time!
Sometimes we get busy and forget about the amazing miracle of friends. God gives us friends. People who honestly care about us and whom we care about. The miracle of friends is that they are always there. Sometimes we miss out on a blessing and being a blessing because we forget to ask. How do we know someone needs anything unless they ask us? How can friends know we need anything unless we ask? I love how children don’t have these “I shouldn’t bother them” issues because they ask friends everything! From, “your sandwich looks good, can I have half?” to “help me fix my ribbon, please!” to “I’m sad, can we sing?” and everything else in between.
A scene from an old movie makes me smile: a girl says “oh I forgot to buy a ladder!” and turns to go back inside the general store. Owner of said general store laughs, picks up his ladder leaning against the wall and says, “country folks don’t buy ladders, they borrow them.” He is trying to impress on this family that people around care about them and want to help in any way possible.
I love that God gave us the miracle of friends. Sometimes we don’t see them for a long time (ages, it always seems) and sometimes a pop-in visit is needed and God arranges that.
I’m so thankful for the friends and family around us. Our people bless us so much! I pray we can return blessings when they need them!
Thank you for reading!
Type at you later!
~Nancy Tart