A Familiar Theme

Friends. I like friends. I thought the above box of chocolates fit in real well with a post on friends. Especially since I now have two chocolate pups. Friends overflowing!

This is my birthday week, and I want to thank all my friends for their friendship. My life is richer and happier because of the ladies and gentlemen I call friends.

I have all of you bunched together in my heart, just like those chocolates above. Each one of you with your own special gift that I draw from when I'm with you.

You've read this poem before on my blog, but it's one of my favorites on friendship, by Edgar A. Guest.

A Friend's Greeting

"I'd like to be the sort of friend that you have been to me;
I'd like to be the help that you've been always glad to be;
I'd like to mean as much to you each minutes of the day
As you have meant, old friend of mine, to me along the way.

"I'd like to do the big things and the splendid things for you,
To brush the gray from out your skies and leave them only blue;
I'd like to say the kindly things that I so oft have heard,
And feel that I could rouse your soul the way that mine you've stirred.

"I'd like to give you back the joy that you have given me,
Yet that were wishing you a need I hope will never be'
I'd like to make you feel as rich as I, who travel on
Undaunted in the darkest hours with you to lean upon.

I'm wishing at this [Christmas] birthday time that I could but repay
A portion of the gladness that you've strewn along my way;
And could I have one wish this year, this only would it be:
I'd like to be the sort of friend that you have been to me."

This week in Choosing JOY by Angela Thomas she talks about the joy of friendship and hospitatlity. (Now isn't that a coincidence? I decided to write about friends for this post and my next chapter in her book is about friends!) Angela spoke of her misfortune of losing friends because she busied her life with too many other things and missed out on the joy friends. She said: "I am missing the swettest kind of joy that comes from pursuing friendships . . . choose the joy of togetherness, shared joys, and friendship in the Body of Christ."

As Karla Dornacher said in her book "Friends are Forever": "The warm rays of love, generosity, integrity, honesty, sharing and caring kindle the spark of life and blessing in the heart of true friendship." (Thank you, dear Karla, for being a kindred spirit and friend.)

I love you friends! Everyone of you! The old and the new--you all mean so much to me! Just like chocolate kisses, I never get tired of my friends!

"The happiest moments my heart knows are those in which it is pouring forth its affections to a few esteemed characters."  Thomas Jefferson

"I count myself in nothing else so happy as in a soul remembering my good friends."  William Shakespeare

"Friends are like chocolate, they are sweet and wonderful, and like it's calories, they stick with you."  Unknown

"Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow-ripening fruit." Aristotle

So thank you friends! You make my life rich! And thank you, Jesus, my very best friend of all! Now what is Abby doing with my shoe?