Forever Friends

While the rest of my blogs seem to read like a chronology of events for my time here in Paris today I am feeling philosophical and full of questions.  Once a good woman told me that we are lucky if we have one or two really good friends. We have lots of acquaintances but real friends are something else. I have been doing the whole navel gazing thing lately and have counted my lucky stars that I have always had a real good friend with me for the most important times in my life.

I am not going to cover every phase in the past (I can hear a sigh of relief on your side) but I have sprinkled in my life these amazing male friends with whom I have been ultra close, with whom I have felt totally myself and at ease. What I don't understand is why this small handful of men have managed to virtually connect with my soul more than my female friends whom I love and adore too.

In November last year I connected with one such man. The relationship was virtually instant and I very soon saw that I had connected with a soul mate, that I was able to enjoy talking with someone directly spirit to spirit. I do not believe that we have only one soul mate but special spirits exist throughout our lives with whom we connect at the deepest level possible. There is no feeling quite like that one for me apart from my personal relationship with the Saviour. With Mark, I found someone who shared so many of my same loves-firstly, our love for the gospel and our hunger to study and understand it. And then there was our deep love for music, (thankfully with an incredible match in tastes), for things historical and artistic and finally our passion for anything and everything in our world. I could count on his honesty with me :) Although a fatal illness cut this relationship frustratingly short a few months ago this will remain as one of those life changing times.

     

Just to prove my point that we have more than one soul mate, right in the middle of developing a relationship with Mark, I went to a single adult conference and started a second spiritual connection with yet another man, Alex. This time someone completely different and yet when we spoke the first time it was like meeting with a very old friend I had always known. We bypassed all the trivia and went to speaking directly soul to soul about things that mattered most to us. Since New Years I have communicated regularly with him and as a friend Alex was with me to comfort me when Mark died. We are opposites in so many ways but he has a warmth, an honesty and a way of lifting my spirits when I need it. I feel able to tell him virtually anything! He remains a real and true friend who I know will always have that special place reserved also among that handful of princes in my life.

Even though we are divorced (and I will always be sad about that) I count my former husband, Walter in this list of special male friends in my life. We have developed a close friendship of an eternal nature especially recently and I would be heartbroken if I did not find him on the other side in the eternities.

I count myself very lucky when I look back and see the men that the Lord has put in my path. They don't come from any particular background, any particular ethnicity or even have any particular personalities. They are completely different men in so many ways. So what is it that makes the difference between those who are "friends" and those who are much more? Why do we have such deep connections with only a certain few? I don't have the answers except to say that at the moment I am glad that I am single that I have had the chance to have each of these men in my life :)