Friendship.....

I started reading a book this week - been doing a lot of that lately - called Angry Housewives Eating BonBons. Saw it at the library and couldn't resist the title. I just started it, but it seems to be a story of a group of friends, starting with them in elderly age, and reminiscing...I like it so far.....this exerpt really made me smile... love the metaphor here...the mental picture, and the feeling of support and love it evokes....

"How are we supposed to stand things?" I had once asked her at the peak of one of the many crisies that conspire against anyone with the temerity to be alive and breathing.
A glaze came over Keri's eyes, the glaze of a person ready to tell a story. "once my mother and I were having lunch in this fancy hotel in Fargo and the waiter served us walleye that was undercooked - honestly, it was sushi before the days of sushi. We had hime take our plates back to the kitchen but when he brought them back, the fish was not only undercooked, but cold. He left us to attend to his other customers, completely ignoring us as we called, 'Waiter!' He had absolutely no time for us or our complaints. "
Keri's got this wonderful laugh - as deep as Santa Claus with a cold. Looking at my face, she let it rip.
"My point is, sometimes life's like a bad waiter and serves you exactly what you don't want. You can cry and scream and order him to take it back, but in the end, you're the one who has to deal with what's set before you."
All of us women in the room have had our share of surly waiters serving bad entrees, but for thirty years, we have helped one another up from the table, passed along antacids and after-dinner mints, offered shoulders to cry on, stiff drinks, and desserts whose butter content was exceeded only by it's sugar load. But this.....this cancer thing - could we survive something that seemed so grimly devoted to taking one of us away?

One of the best things in the world to me, when I am sturggling is a friend saying, "hey - let' sgo for coffee. " so maybe I just relate really well to the food metaphor. Often times, it can seem this way with our own lives and possibly our interactions with what God "serves us" on our plates. Most times we want to push our plate away and stomp our feet like toddlers. The beauty of it? God did not leaves us here alone to deal with it. He has given us friends, family and kinship to help us through those bad meals. I guess the food reference just speaks to me - as someone who often softens life's blows with chocolate and lattes!

I am drawn to strories of groups of friends and women. There is a great book written by a group of ladies profiled on GMA yesterday morning - they are 13 women who have shared "custody" of an extremely expensive diamond necklace for decades, and the book chronicles their growth, and stories of how the friendships created from ownership of this necklaces has helped each in a different areas of their life. Cool. I have a lot of friends. However, I envy that "large group" of friend picture at times. Not many of my friends know each other well enough for all of us to hang out together....I have small pockets of friends in different areas of my life that I cherish beyond belief. In that regard I am very blessed. Our biggest task in life is sometimes not getting through our own challenges but being placed in a position to help a friend through one of thier challenges, and I believe that is a blessing and a priviledge that is paid back time and time again.