When I left Pryor, I had a beautiful armoire chest--carved walnut with a beveled mirror inlaid door.  My friend Kathy (Mitchell, at the time) was in the habit of bringing me hot home made yeast rolls every couple of weeks, (yes, there are friends that do wonderful things like that) and loved the armoire.  She asked what I was going to do with it.

"Sell it," I told her.  "I want it," she said.  "How much? she asked.  "You can have it for what I paid for it fifteen years ago."  (I bought it for ten cents on the dollar as to what it was worth.) Definitely not an even trade for all the bread she baked me through the years.  Thank God good friends don't keep score.)  She came and got it.  It looks fantastic in her house.  It makes me happy to see it got a good home, and every time I stop at Kathy's house I get to enjoy looking at it.  I tell you that story to tell you this next one.

Becky's estate sale was last weekend.  There was a beautiful piece of stained glass for sale.  Kathy, who lives in Pryor, saw it in the on line Swan estate pictures and bought it over the phone.  The stained glass was mine; Becky sold it for me.  What's the chance of that happening?  But Kathy and I have always liked the same things.  After the estate charges, I was able to buy a gorgeous carved walnut headboard for a bed in my house that hadn't had a headboard for the last 25 years.  It came out practically even.  I had seen the picture of the headboard--on line for the same estate sale as well.  What goes around comes around.  Kathy is happy.  I am happy.  But next time I have an antique for sale, I'm going to call Kathy first and save her some trouble!

I love my friends. They are one of God's greatest blessings.  You don't get to choose your relatives, but you choose your friends, or they choose you.  One way or another they are precious treasures and a gift from God.  I've been friends with Kathy for probably fifty years.  Carolyn for sixty five.  Becky Bacon for thirty?  Sally, for twenty five?  And the list goes on and on.  Jeanette, my newest soul mate for three years.  If I forgot to name you, you know who you are.  Count it up to my old age and know that I adore you--every one.  
Proverbs 18:24 "One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother, (sister).  All of my friends are friends of God.