Monday Morning Musings ...

(I actually did this Monday morning and somehow posted it on my family's Christmas list blog.)

Yesterday was a very different day. I spent Friday night, all day Saturday and Sunday until early afternoon with 4 other guys I first met 36 years ago. When I arrived at college I had no idea that these 4 guys who were living in rooms just down the hall from me would still be a part of my life 36 years later. Not just a part of my life, but an important part of it. We got together with all of our families several years ago at a hotel for a weekend. It was a blast, then for the next several years we were not able to get together. The other 4 were able to get together a few times, but I was not able to make it. Then a couple of years ago 4 of us were at our college homecoming together and said we need to just schedule a time and get together. Less than a year later one of our group lost his wife after a 2 or 3 year battle with a brain tumor. The rest of us made plans to head up to the funeral, pay our respects and support our buddy. He asked us not to come at that time, because of the busyness and the crowd that would be there, he would rather get with us at a later time. So a year ago we all met at a lake cottage for a weekend. It was a great time. One that we all committed to doing again this year. We finally got our schedules in agreement and did it this past weekend. Plans are underway for next year.

We didn't do anything special, and yet everything we did was special. We talked, we ate, we laughed and then repeated those several times over the 43 hours we were together. I laughed till I cried, I was brought to tears as we shared with each other and I ate junk food like I was back in college.

I am impressed that we are all in contact, that we are all active in our churches, that there are no divorces among us, that we are all in different careers and still have so much in common, that we genuinely care for each other, that tears are welling up as I type this post, that we have all gone through so much and are more in love with Jesus than we were 36 years ago.

I am really humbled and honored to be a part of this group of godly men. I love being around them and love that we can laugh a lot and share deeply. It is my guess that a certain little restaurant near where we stayed is still talking about this crazy group of men who ate breakfast there 2 days in a row. Since we were not quiet and there was much laughter while we were there, and that we were at our table for a long time on both day. I am also fairly confident that the waitresses would love to have us back again often given the volume of the tip left and the positive way in which we treated our waitresses.

We left a mark at the restaurant, these men have left a mark in my life, hopefully I have left a mark in their lives. After all is said and done isn't that what we are called to do?