Thanks for Friends

The most valuable things in life are not measured in monetary terms. The really important things are not houses and lands, stocks and bonds, automobiles and real state, but friendships, trust, confidence, empathy, mercy, love and faith. --- Bertrand Russell V. Delong ---

It has been my blessing through my life to have many people with whom I have exchanged friendliness. Some have come for relatively short stretches of time and others have, like the fragrant blossom of the magnolia, lingered around gently and light throughout my life thus far.

While it is truthfully said that our immediate family are those to whom we look as we find our first friends, those others who hold a special place within our hearts that we gather as chosen blossoms become as family.

When I review the passing of the years in the gathering lines of age on my once youthful countenance, I count more valuable the people in my life who are the cause of the laugh lines that have carried me through the hardships of life and who have made possible the remembrances of all the joys that have been mine.

From family and the laughter and love shared through that closely knit and gently cared for fabric of our lives to the addition of those who are woven in until you cannot distinguish blood from choice, friendship is a great blessing and privilege of mortality that extends through the veil of this mortal life through eternity. 

I cannot imagine that vast gathering of souls in God's big house with empty seats where the people who have made life worth living. It would be counter to the joy that is heaven. 

Although thanksgiving often has murmured expressions and prayers of gratitude for THINGS, I feel overwhelmed for the PEOPLE who have come into my life. Like the lyrics of the song "For Good" from the musical "Wicked", there are simply some people in life who come and place a gentle "hand-print on my heart". 

 

From them, the phone call is never to early or too late. The laughs comes easily and are genuine. Tears sometimes flow and the spirit of friendship is renewed in the simplest things. Time doesn't matter and distance doesn't count when friendship is the medium of exchange. It is the rarest blessing and the greatest happiness we can relate to on a daily basis.

Thank you to my friends. God has granted me the most gracious boon. From you, I have learned and grown and with you I have shared both the good and the bad. To you, I owe my deepest thanks, for you have endured all the facets that I am and still consider me your friend.

May God bless all of my friends and grant unto them the most sacred and righteous desires in their  hidden heart at this special season of gratitude. My friends most certainly deserve His blessings for they have enriched and blessed me. 

Happy Thanksgiving!