Best Friends

I’ve had several people I’ve called best friends over the years…I usually have two or three at least. But the one who has lasted the longest and who knows all my secrets from childhood on is Jacque (pronounced Jackie, short for Jacqueline). I walked into my sixth grade class the first day of school and saw a new girl with blonde pigtails sitting at a desk near the front of the room. I’d never known anyone with pigtails and was immediately intrigued. That was fifty-five years ago and it’s been over five decades since the pigtails were traded for the short hair more conducive to the sports activities so dear to her heart.

Jacque and I were always very different so it seemed odd that we were such good friends.

I hated physical exertion of any kind, and enthusiasm about sports, even as a spectator, remains an enigma to me. Jacque, on the other hand, stays glued to the TV during basketball season and usually watches football and baseball too. A knee injury keeps her from the tennis, golf, and water skiing that were her passion for years. As kids, we’d go to the pool together and she’d swim and exercise while I went to the locker room and read. The only thing we had in common was that we laughed a lot – the whole world seemed like a comedy arranged for our amusement.

Jacque and I were not model teenagers. At Girl Scout Camp we caused so much trouble that the District Director came to our cabin and, in tears, told us that in her seventeen years of leadership, she had never run into two girls like us and she wasn’t sure what to do with us. We looked at each other in awe, with great pride that we had reduced this pillar of strength to tears. We were kind of hoping she’d expel us from camp so we could go home where there weren’t so many rules and restrictions. But she hadn’t been leading girls for seventeen years without learning some things. She kept us there and put us in different cabins and in different work/play groups. Evil woman!

Sometime in our twenties, I reconnected with Jesus, and Jacque found Him for the first time. Since then, around 40 years, Jacque and I have been prayer partners, accountability partners, and partners in the gospel. Together we founded Voice of Joy Ministries.

God had a plan for those two silly eleven-year-olds, those two rebellious teens, that we couldn’t see at the time…and neither could anybody else! Except Him.

Hopefully we’ll meet the Lord in the air together. I’ve often thought I wouldn’t know how to function in this world without Jacque if something happened to her and she left here before I do. But I remind myself that I have an even better friend. His name also starts with a J. He’s Jesus and I never have to fear separation from Him. And it’s because of Him that I have all the best friends I’ve had throughout life…they are part of His Body in the earth.

Do you have stories about best friends? If so, please share. I’m going off to be alone in a mountain retreat cottage with my very number one Best Friend, Jesus, this week. Another best friend Tracy Ruckman will be approving the publication of your responses.

God bless you.