My friend Jeanette--I don't know if I have mentioned her before--is the first friend I made in Edmond when I moved here.  I was standing outside the First Baptist Church on the first Sunday morning after moving here, wondering if this was a church I might like to visit, when she came up and asked me if I would like to go to her Connection group with her.  So I did.  And now I am teaching it.  And Jeanette has been like a spring in the middle of a desert.  She is always ready to help me.

She came over today to look at the new house while Tony was laying tile.  And when she went home, she called and said, "We need to make cutouts to scale to help you figure out where things are going to go.  I'll come over tomorrow and help you do that."  Hallelujah.  Praise God.  I have been so exhausted packing boxes that I haven't had time to figure that out.  I have always made cutouts before I moved--measuring the rooms and where the windows are--but I have been so busy that I put that on the back burner of my mind to do later.  I had no idea where things were going to go.

Well, later is here!!  Jeanette is going to help me.  It is such a relief.  And on top of that, Ann called and said, "Tomorrow morning we are going to take a break and go garage sailing.  You need to do something fun for a few hours."

I am so blessed.  God provides me with people in my life who care about me and lift me up.

One of the things I have learned in the last eighty years is that you need people who uplift you in your  close circle of friends.  And you need to drop those who pull you down.  In my past I have had to pull away from people who made me feel "down."  Good people, but not exactly what I need in my life.  I need people to keep me going.  I want to spend my time with people who don't gossip, moan, whine, or negate others in every situation.  People like that make me tired.

Of course, all of us have our moments.  We all need to be picked up and restarted from time to time, everyone needs a friend to talk to when things are going on in their life which are difficult.  But for some people, moaning about their difficulties is a permanent home.  They like it there.  And it will wear you out.  My friend Jeanette has given me a lift from the "Slough of Despond."  (Pilgrim's Progress.  Read it.)  Today, I am going to cut out stuff from graph paper with my friend.