The day may come, though, when each of us can realize, “My friend is as close to me as myself. I love this friend like my own life. She is the best friend a person could ever be.”

“Best” friends have existed from the beginning of recorded history. Words for “best friend” appear in many languages. The ancient Hebrew word was alluph meaning “guide, chief friend”. The Greeks grasped this idea, too, with their word peitho meaning “persuade, trust, confidence”. The words appear in Proverbs 16:28, 17:9 and Acts 12:20, where it mentions a man who is “trusted personal servant of the king”.

You know, the one who saddles his horse, pours his wine, and hands him his clothing; the one who stores his seal, adjusts his armor, and sleeps in his doorway. No one gets past this man because he loves his king more than his own life. The king has hand-picked him because of his loyalty. Many may want the job, may even attack the servant with gossip, because of jealousy, but the king has final say and this man is it.

This closest friend has free access to your soul, can tell you off or kiss your cheek without blame. It is the duty and privilege of this closest friend.

You would trust this friend to discipline your own children, to manage your estate, to give you a sponge bath if you had a fever. You would trust this friend to talk you into or out of a huge decision.

You would tell this friend first, if you sinned a huge sin. The wrong person in this slot could completely destroy you.

Pure trust. Pure friendship. It happens once in a lifetime for some, never for others.

No one, no one, should enter into this type of friendship lightly. Such trust must always be earned.

Such trust is not always mutual. One friend may trust more than the other because of differences in caution levels, need levels, or past hurts. Even lack of time can cause one to forego such friendship.

Sometimes it is fleeting. Two men trapped in a fallen mine shaft may trust each other in this way until they are rescued, when those golden hours become a golden memory of the highest humanity can be.

Sometimes we must trust medical professionals this way, for a brief time, and, of course, sometimes that forced trust can seem very awkward.

What joy that for some women, such a friendship develops inside marriage! Many women, though, may feel they need one female friend of nearly equal status to the husband, just to have someone with whom they can discuss the pitfalls and surprises of marriage to a man.

For some of us, our own mothers can be this type of friend. For some of us, our mothers must rely upon us in this manner.

Jonathan risked his life to save David’s. Nehemiah was cupbearer to the king. My sister was my mother’s executrix. Pure trust, rightly placed, is a precious gift.

If you find that opportunity, take it.

Take it very slowly.

Blessings of Habit, Brothers, Inspiring, Photos, Scripture, Wisdom, Womanhood

Been Unfriended?

Posted on September 16, 2011October 25, 2018 by Katharine

People can be complicated.

Friendships can be messy.

Knowing more can be scary.

With the knowing, the deeper truths, and the closer expressions of concern, can come the fears, the denials, and the silence.

The dark days of friendship.

A couple of friends once asked me if my young teen daughter could arbitrate between their two teens. I could hardly believe my ears. The three of us were close, so I shared my many concerns and said no.

The ramifications were astounding: a seeming total breakdown in all communication.

They literally continued being friends to each other without me and my daughter.

Wow.

A full year later, we were all at an event at a park. One of these friends had a newly-minted, biggest-baddest car-of-the-year and asked me if I would enjoy taking it around the park with her.

The shock!

Still the idea of sitting behind all 4 million horses under that hood was too tempting and we took her for a spin at park speed: 5 mph. Ha.

It was glorious and just destroyed my mini-van, in my eyes.

However, what happened during that drive was more. Far more. This dear friend apologized. She said she was wrong. She had thought I was wrong but she saw differently later. She thanked me for my dedication to truth and to our friendship. I thanked her for the same two things.

We are still friends, the kind that can be apart for a year and then take it up like we were just days apart. Which we did.

This was deep.

This was asking advice on children and giving it.

This was disagreeing and staying cool for a year.

This was trusting an apology would fix it.

This was forgiving wrongs. Deep, deep, deep, like few, few, few friendships ever can be.

The ancients called these types of friendships leb in Hebrew and philos in Greek, implying core understanding, brotherhood. This friend would visit a friend in jail. This friend would give up a year of pleasure for a friend. This friend would help a relative of a friend, if asked; would party and rejoice at a friend’s joy. Read about it in Ruth 2:13 and John 3:29.

But it can backfire.

Big.

All people have at their fingertips the ability to do wrong. This is what we risk in every relationship, but the closer we grow, the more we risk.

The closer we are, the more accurately we can aim our weapons.

And, oh, the more it hurts.

This is a call for caution.

Some people are broken and do not know how to be a friend. Befriending them will always be a lopsided venture, more give than take, like dancing with someone who doesn’t know the steps. Befriending them will always carry risk. Befriending someone who might backfire is a noble calling, not a picnic.

As long as we remember each of us is able to fail, as long as we dedicate ourselves to befriending and not to collecting fun people, we can proceed. We can gently and lovingly share the truth in hope, not that the friendship will one day benefit ME, but that it will one day bring glory to God.

And that is where we all should be.

Comments? Read more?

The question is more than friending or unfriending. So much rests on your choice!

Believe it or not!, Blessings of Habit, Inspiring, Scripture, Wisdom

To Friend or NOT to Friend is NOT the Question

Posted on September 15, 2011October 25, 2018 by Katharine

Baskin and Robbins began as brothers-in-law. Holmes was looking for a roommate and Watson, an apartment; a co-acquaintance introduced them. Ben and Jerry met in a junior high gym class. George and Laura Bush met at a barbecue; she was a Democrat at the time.

You just never know!

Once we pass the stage of just smiling, waving, and discussing the weather; once we acknowledge this friendship has gone beyond mere mutual co-existence; once we begin missing someone and caring about his troubles, we slide into the third stage of friendship.

And we’d better have done our homework first.

What the ancients called ahab in Hebrew and hoi soi in Greek is that comfortable belovedness that we call familiar friendship. It’s that willing leaning into the yoke together, a certain smiling oneness that tells us “we like this.” Examples appear in Esther 5:10 and Mark 5:19.

It’s time for caution.

Friends come and go, but it’s a good idea to hang on to your soul, to make sure someone doesn’t carry off your personality while you’re not looking.

Some friendships are simply dangerous and the deeper we trust someone, the more it is imperative they be trustworthy. Therefore, the closer we draw to anyone, the more appropriate and vital our conversations become. Certain things must be discussed. As we work, play, eat, and rest with a friend, we who care must constantly ask, bit by bit, constantly seek that open door to deeper understanding of each other.

I know, some folks never talk about politics and religion, but really, how can we ever grow closer without that? Life goals, ideologies, and other matters about which we are logically careful, must be open to those with whom we are open. When we allow others to influence the fragile matrix of the core of our being, we must know where we stand, where the lines are drawn.

And yet . . .

What a glorious opportunity presents itself when we share openly with someone who has long desired a way to heal, a way to stand more firmly! Questions again become the food and drink of friendship and we find that if we can be strong, we can hold out a hand to the weak, extend a lifeline to the perishing. Our very presence can signal the hope like a lighthouse in a storm. Lives can spring back to life and new light can thunder in to glorious dawning.

An older man we know has befriended a young man for ages, taking him to public events, connecting at lunch occasionally, sometimes fishing with him. The young man’s marriage recently went through a severe test, but he is learning how to come out of this time in victory. He has drawn closer than ever to his beloved family, so opposite from what the enemy of our souls obviously wanted. Throughout this time, he has not failed to call upon the older man for prayer, advice, and simple acceptance. He is winning. He has come out on the other side, now. He has new strength. He grows daily.

All because of friendship, all from a good old comfortable friend who has touched God.

It’s what we need, what we crave; or it’s what we have, what we long to share; it’s why we aim at friendship in the first place.

Who among us has not been there.

Comment? Read more?

BE the friend she needs, instead of collecting friends. Be the adult in your friendships!

Believe it or not!, Cats, Coffee-ism, Inspiring, Photos, Scripture, Wisdom, Womanhood

To Befriend or NOT to Befriend . . .

Posted on September 14, 2011October 25, 2018 by Katharine

Okay, you know her name and that she has three children and came from Peoria, and she attends your church when she bothers with attending.

You even know what she and her husband argue about. She lives just down the street, after all.

You just do not feel very close. Oh, sure, you’ve given her a ride when her car was in the shop, you watched her children while she painted a room, and you took her some soup when they all had flu. She lives just down the street, after all.

She is what the ancient Hebrew called anesh-shalom and the ancient Greek called hetairos. These words referred to acquaintances that we work with, live with, even depend upon, but yet are not necessarily of our choosing. Examples are Jeremiah 38:22 and Matthew 20:13.

It would not yet be wise to trust her, but how do you befriend her?

You take food to her, help with her children, and give her rides; that’s how.

While you are at it, show interest. If you are only a helping hand, she will feel like a charity case. A person usually cannot open up to another unless there is a trade, a give and take, like a dance. If, over coffee or tea, you ask to see the paint job, ask her for a ride in return, or ask if her children would feed your cat while you are gone, you will deepen the relationship.

You will earn closeness that allows you to ask better questions than, “How are you today?”.

Questions like:

“You look tired—bad night?”

“So, how do you like the neighborhood? Are you meeting folks?”

“It was good to see you Sunday—Have you decided to join us, or are you still looking?”

Her answers will open doors for new conversations that are more meaningful. Conversations are the building blocks of true friendship. Slip in a hug, when appropriate, and you add the cherry on top: You add value to her person.

Realizing that each person on this earth is needy is the key to all relationships.

We once lived next door to the wealthiest family in town, totally out of our league. The wife one day asked my permission to help plant my rose bushes. The part she really wanted to do was pick the grass roots from the soil, so it would not grow back so quickly. Her daddy, she said, used to make her do that chore and she seldom got a chance to show her expertise at it, anymore.

When we got thirsty, I brought out ice water in my old jelly glass tumblers. We sat on the edge of the terrace, on a railroad tie, and chatted as if we were just a couple of women who liked playing in the dirt, in our grubby clothes. We talked about our mothers-in-law and about the neighbor’s cute grandson. You know, normal stuff.

She needed to feel normal.

And haven’t we all been there.

Comment?

Lace Scrunchies

Posted on September 9, 2011September 8, 2011 by Katharine

This blue lace will become the gathered-up fluff ball we use for bath time scrubbers. Some people call them loufas, but that is not what they are. Loufas are tan in color, actually the inside network of a gourd. Since it looks spongy, some people call them sponges. Also incorrect. Sponges are the network of an underwater animal.

Anyway, bath scrunchies are easy to make. Simply measure out a length of tulle or lace 10″ by 60″ or so, fold in half, lengthwise, to 5″ by 60″, sew the long edges together, turn seams to the inside. Then insert a heavy string or small rope and gather it all by tying the string or rope into as small a circle as possible. This will make a very large, soft, and puffy ball of gathered fabric, gentle on wet skin.

To make it smaller and tougher, for calluses and such, gather the entire doubled length and then tie off, from the outside, like a pom-pom.

I plan to make several of the scrunchies for inclusion in the package for the customer, should she decide she needs one to complete a gift. They will not cost much, maybe only a dollar, which would be a about a 350% return on my costs, since the fabric was only a dollar per yard, and actually, is left over from a curtain project. But the customer will be pleased to receive this small thing for nearly free.

We all enjoy finding something we can feel good about purchasing, don’t we. We all should be looking around for things we can include in our daily dealings with all people. It’s the magazine issue you’ve read and passed on, the jar of jam from a huge harvest, or even the offer to babysit, that makes the day for those we meet.

When we keep an eye open for what we have that we can spare, what someone else needs that we can bear to part with, then we practice generosity. We cannot all live with the terminally ill and give them sips of water. We can, though, give in other small, self-sacrificing ways, to anyone we see.

Reach out. The whole world is waiting for a “lace scrunchie.”

Believe it or not!, Who's the mom here?, Womanhood

Texas and California Have Disappeared.

Posted on August 25, 2011January 19, 2014 by Katharine

Note: I wrote this long ago, but it is still true, today, except the number now is 55,000,000. That’s 55 millions. Look around you, folks; who’s missing?

Twenty-seven years ago, our Supreme Court nullified enough states’ laws that it effectively provided for the killing of the equivalent of 52 million US citizens. What kind of number is 52,000,000?

Try thinking about 17% of us missing.

Nearly the entire populations of California and Texas.

Gone.

More than all of New York, Florida, and Illinois.

Wiped out.

All of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Georgia, and North Carolina.

Eliminated.

New Jersey, Virginia, Washington, Massachusetts, Indiana, Arizona, Tennessee, and Missouri.

Disappeared

Or, Maryland, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Colorado, Alabama, South Carolina, Louisiana, Kentucky, Oregon, Oklahoma, Connecticut, and Iowa.

ALL GONE.

This is about whole states missing. All the people who built, spoke, taught, laughed, cried, worshiped, drove cars, doctored, nursed, grew trees, or developed technology, gone from more than one state. A wilderness, untouched by man, not even one firefighter to combat the effects of lightning.

And we don’t really notice.

They were enough to have replenished our teachers 2 or 3 times, our doctors, 78 times.

And lost tax revenue? $153 billion.

We’re shooting ourselves in the foot.

Believe it or not!, Home School, Inspiring, Pre-schoolers, Wisdom, Womanhood

Missing Children Found!

Posted on August 24, 2011November 10, 2018 by Katharine

How many children would you guess are homeschooling in the US, today?

Two Million.

That’s one in every 25 kids of school age.

empty desk What this means is that in every classroom that holds 25 children, one is missing. And it’s because of homeschool.

The schools don’t like us home educators very much because of it.

They feel they are losing too much money because of it.

But they forget two things.

They forget we don’t get that money. Their argument is with their own bought-and-paid-for legislators, not with us, if anything is amiss or missing in public education.
They forget abortion.

Abortion has killed far beyond 55,000,000 since Roe vs. Wade.

That is more than EVERY child in EVERY classroom currently in America.

Missing.

Dead.

We’ve killed that many.

Look around you.

Every child ages 5 – 18 has at least one counterpart who is missing. because he or she was aborted.

They could have doubled their money, had they thought about it.