Brighten a Rainy Day

Today was dark, grey, stormy and altogether unpleasant. It was also a solitary day as everyone in the office had somewhere more important to be. I thought it was more important for me to be in my flannel pajamas reading in bed, but alas I’m hoarding my vacation days for Christmas. None of the piles on my desk were urgent, so I sat and stared out the plate glass windows at the pounding rain, trying to find one redeemable quality in the day. As I watched the sun set behind the clouds at 4 o’clock in the afternoon, I finally hit upon the answer.

I started this blog as an escape from work, a way to put down my thoughts without feeling like a melodramatic adolescent making furtive notations in her diary. The advantage was reconnecting with several high school friends who also have blogs. Even though some of them live less than an hour away and I see them on a regular basis, this exchange of ideas, thoughts, and the topics that concern us have allowed us to reconnect in a way that hearkens back to the many slumber parties and hours-long gab sessions of a decade ago. We are all in different places in our lives but the things that drew us to one another in junior high and high school have drawn us together again. So in honor of my rediscovered friendships, here are a few of my favorite quotes on friendship:

We think we have chosen our peers. In reality, a few years difference in the dates of our births, a few more miles between certain houses, the choice of one university over another . . . the accident of a topic being raised or not being raised at first meeting – any of these chances might have kept us apart. But, for a Christian, here are, strictly speaking, no chances. A secret master of ceremonies has been at work. Christ, who said to the disciples, "Ye haven’t chosen me, but I have chosen you," can truly say to every group of Christian friends, " Ye haven’t chosen one another, but I have chosen you for one another." The friendship is not the reward for our discriminating and good taste in finding one another out. It is the instrument by which God reveals to each the beauties of others.
~ C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves, pg. 126

Friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life; and thanks to the benevolent arrangement of things, the greater part of life is in the sunshine.
~ Thomas Jefferson

Writing creates a sanctuary. It is a place where friends, although apart, can meet.
~ Sylvana Rossetti

To my dear friends past, present, and future who brighten my rainy days, Thank You!