Lifetime Friends

There's something to be said for a friendship that spans 30 years. A friendship filled with memories of babies born in third world cities. A friendship that includes countless cups of tea, family dinners and kid's play dates. Picking up each other's kids from school. Scrapbooking. Painting together at the Color Café. Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter at rotating homes. Sharing scriptures with new friends. Helping each other be better wives, mothers, workers and warriors for God. Encouraging each other to find our authentic voices. Knowing the best and the worst about each other and feeling a comfort in that knowledge. Conversations that ebb and flow throughout the day and into the evening. Interruptions that aren't offensive but that move smoothly from topic to topic with a familiarity and ease that is refreshing to us and confusing to our husbands. "When were we talking about...?"


I didn't know what I was walking into the fall of 1983 when I met Anne-Brigitte Taliaferro near Macy's in New York City. I knew it was important to get to know the wife of the new intern minister. I knew we would be working together in a newly formed Bible discussion group at the university I was attending. I didn't know it would be the beginning of one of the most special friendships of my life. What that meeting has grown into over the years is something I wish for my children and all my readers to experience in their lives. Anne-Brigitte and I might not live in the same city right now, but our hearts reside nearby forever.