Katies

The summer's been full and fruitful and all-consuming.  I've so many blog posts written in my head and pray there will be time to get some of them down before they're lost.
I often feel at a loss when I have so many ideas and have to start somewhere.  So I usually choose to start with the most immediate.
In this case, it's the Katies.
Within one month I've been able to spend time with three of my most favorite Katies in the world.

This is nothing short of miraculous and deserves a blog post!

Each one is a blonde beauty.  Each one loves Jesus wholeheartedly and is walking by His Spirit and continuing to grow more like Him each year.

Each one has been an immense gift to me.  Nothing but grace.

Here's the first one I saw in early July:

me, Sissy, Katie

I met her in late grade school when she moved to our country town.  Our families are now fast friends.
I have many a loony memory with her as we snow skied, raised lambs, worked in student government, played in the band, and hatched outlandish plans and songs together.
Mostly, though, she and I planned summer mission trips when she was 15, I 16.  We spurred one another on in our goal, she to Pakistan, I to Tanzania.  It was a trip that changed me forever...where I really and wholeheartedly gave myself to Jesus.
When we returned we worked together to start Bible Studies and a little drama group at our high school.
God used her to change me and bless me tremendously.  Now she happens to live in the same town as me, but usually she's overseas.  She and her family are planning to move to Peru soon to share Jesus with children there.

Katie and I cutting various children's hair this August.  They just jumped into the nearby kiddy pool to clean off.

The next Katie I met probably within a couple days of her birth, I being about 18 months old.  And yes, my aunt let me hold her.
We spent childhood together on the family farm and have more memories than I could ever even remember.  Connected by family blood and the blood of Jesus, we've traveled similar but different roads.
Both of us have five children.  She's got a heart for her family and for Jesus that never empties.  Her husband is in seminary right now preparing to be an army chaplain.  Usually they are in different areas of the country with the military, but right now they're in the area.

Me and Katie in front of our husbands

The last Katie surprised me yesterday.  I've not seen her for 11 years, yet there's a place in my heart especially for her.  We lived together in college.  Her to-be-husband introduced my to-be husband to a personal relationship with Jesus.  We went through our courting days with our future husbands together, a deeply meaningful time and friendship.
They now live in inner-city L.A. where they pastor in a new church there.

I, undeserving, stop and thank God for such beautiful women who've been a part of my life at important  milestones.  Women who call me higher and purer and point me to Jesus with their very beings.

Sometimes I forget what a gift friendship is...so today I stop and remember.  What boundless grace.

How about you?  Any friendships you want to stop and thank God for?