I am finding it more and more challenging to uncover the lighter side of life these days, but that only makes me more determined. My mind has become a bit numb. I would wear a hat to warm it up and maybe get the blood circulating, but that is problematic for me due to the size of my head (plus, I don’t think it works that way). I used to be sensitive about my extra-large noggin, then I discovered that my friend, Moggie, has what she considers a small head. For entertainment we would go try on hats together. The hat that sat way on top of my head would slide down to her nose.

I have convinced myself that when you look at me you are not thinking, “wow, she has a huge head.” If Moggie and I stand next to each other, you wouldn’t be thinking about our heads. You would likely notice that I look like a giant next to her, but that’s okay. We have learned that the size of our heads or height of our bodies does not define us. We large headed folks can mingle with small headers quite nicely. That’s called diversity.

Moggie stopped by our house spur of the moment the other day. It was like medicine for my soul to see my friend.

There have been times, which had nothing to do with a pandemic or social distance mandate or masks, when I felt isolated in my life. One of those times was when Bob and I first moved to Orlando from Maryland back in the 70s. We were young and knew no one outside of my family. We had begun attending a mega church and that was not proving a successful means to friendship building. So many people and no new friends! It was a bit overwhelming for us.

We prayed that God would give us friends.

One night we bravely attended a church class for young married people. Since it was smaller in number, we thought we’d meet people. Alas, they all seemed very friendly – with each other. Little did we know that God had something different in mind. After our meeting was over, we were going to the main service, so we wandered out to the hall with another couple who were also first-timers. We sat together in the meeting and introduced ourselves. I remember whispering to Bob that maybe we could invite them over, but before we could act on that, they passed us a note with their address on it and a friendship was born.

That was over forty years ago. Since that time God has brought many more amazing friends into my life. Recently I have been attempting to refocus on friendships. It has been far too easy to live life isolated from the relationships God has blessed us with. I want to encourage you, in whatever state of pandemic safety you find yourself in, reach out to those you love. Friends are a gift – it’s important that they are present in your life.

I’ll leave you with this, if someone thought it important enough that their pets have friends, how much more should we humans cherish our friends.

According to the report, this was to fill the need of dogs feeling isolated during the pandemic. Wow!