Beauty of Friendship

In October I wrote about how I love facebook as a prayer tool and how thankful I am for the friendships I've been blessed with.

I've witnessed the power of both again this week.  One of my best friends from college received horrible news this week when his 8 year old son was diagnosed with a brain tumor.  There is a lot more to this story than is mine to share, but I have loved watching from a distance as friends from college have rallied around this family right now, eventhough many of us have never met this little boy.

I went to a small Christian college of about 2000 students.  Of those, only about 800 lived on campus.  It was definitely like living in a small town.  Our freshman year we lived in the dorms and ate in the cafeteria together.  By sophomore year most of us moved into campus apartments.  We went to the same Bible studies and saw each other late at night "studying" at Denny's.  Many couples met their spouses on campus while everyone watched them date and wondered when they were going to announce their engagement. (To give you an idea---I had 6 engaged roommates before I started my Senior year. Both of my roommates I had in the dorm were engaged by the time our freshman year ended!)  It was definitely a different experience than my husband had in college by going to a large state university and living off campus, but I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Within that "small town" there were different circles of friends, but everybody knew each other and it was great (most of the time).  Now that we're in our 30's we have lives that are quite different from the ones we led during those years, but it's been great to see those same friends rally around one who needs prayer, support, and encouragement right now.