When I Grow Up

When I was in Kindergarten, I decided that when I grew up I would become a teacher. This lasted for several years and even included the plan of 1) finish high school, 2) go to college for four years, 3) become a teacher for a year and 4) get married. (I was eight when I came up with this well thought out plan.) However, by the time I reached the ripe old age of 12, I was a bit disillusioned with the idea of teaching and, because I was reading a series of books I really liked, decided that becoming a private investigator was more to my liking. Then I decided I would become a writer. But, like most Americans, by the time I reached eighteen and did graduate from high school I really had no earthly clue what I wanted to do. But when I was twenty-two I hit upon my life goal: when I grow up I want to be like Allyson.

Hardly a day goes by when I don’t think of Allyson. It is said that you can go through a whole life and have only one really, truly, sincerely good friend. I have actually been blessed with many of those who remain a huge asset in my life five, six or even twenty years later. But none like Allyson. We have known each other for nearly nineteen years and been the very best of friends for nearly fourteen. And we have promised to be friends even after our kids are grown, we’re so old we’ll have to shout to hear each other on the phone and any day could be our last. Really we have. And then we’ll see each other in eternity.

Today is Allyson’s 40^thbirthday and today, more than any other day, I praise God for her. Words can’t express how much her friendship has blessed me, how she has seen me through some of the hardest times of my life, and how she has both sympathized and challenged me through the highs and lows. That the Lord has used me in her life often amazes me. Aside from the fact that I can organize my way out of Tornado Alley, I have very few gifts that hold a candle to the fact that Proverbs 31 was written about Allyson. Which is why I want to be like her when I grow up. And maybe by the time our kids are grown and we’re in wheelchairs, I’ll have succeeded. But I doubt it.

And that doesn’t really matter because we’ll still be friends anyway. For which I am forever thankful.