ladybuglover369's Journal

So, have you ever had a really close friend in your childhood that you lost because of time and distance alone? I thought I had lost one too. Okay, in reality, I lost alot of them. Last night however, through a miracle of God, I found a friend I had not heard from since 2001, just after my son was born.

Through a chain of events that has lasted years I thought I had lost her forever, and she felt she had lost me. Basically, just after my son was born she tried to contact me and someone, I'm pretty sure it was my ex-step mother told her I did not want to be contacted by her anymore. I was never told of this call. At the time I was in the hospital recovering from surgery.

In a book Rachel sent to me she left her parents number. When I was sixteen I had stayed at the house of my friend Ann, and left the book there. It was the Pilgrims Progress by John Bunyan. I forgot the book during a hard period in my life, in which I ran away and became pregnant with my son, and suffered many horrors that a sixteen year old girl should never have to endure.

When I finally returned home I was pregnant and frightened. I moved to a group home, quite forgetting the book. When my son was about eight months old I was put in the hospital and had to have surgery. It was during this time that Rachel tried to contact me.

Through out a few years and many trials my faith in God waned and I became angry. I met my first husband and was abused by him. He burned many of my pictures, poems, journals, books, and letters. Then he made the mistake of hurting my child, and I left him. I became strong enough to care for me. But alas, I believed the book was lost forever.

Shortly after my seperation from him, Ann called to tell me there had been a fire in the apartment she shared with Nick's (her husband now, boyfriend then) mother. Nick's mother and her boyfriend both passed away in the fire. But the quick thinking of my friend Matt, had saved Ann as well as another girl. Many of her things were damaged by the fire, and she was feeling crushed and overwhelmed. My friend Nick did not fare better, because his mother was lost in the blaze.

Shortly after this, Nick and Ann were married and found a new apartment.  I soon remarried as well and after my wedding day, I did not see them for about a year. During the time between leaving my first husband and finding my second I completely walked away from God, and turned to wicca, my father's religion. But I could find no solace. I was angry and hurt and had no idea who I was anymore.

God sent me Steve however, and I realized that God can work good through the bad in our lives. If it had not been for the events in my marriage, or the events that pulled Matt to save Ann and her friend as well as himself from that fire, the circumstances for me to meet Steve would not have existed. So I thank Him for the trouble I went through.

I turned back to God shortly after I married my husband and through many new experiences over the years, I have become the person who writes today. It is now 2008 and recently my boss requested that I move to New Hampshire and open an office for him there. I accepted the position and am going to move before the month is over.

When I returned on Wednesday from my trip to put the deposit on an apartment for my family, Ann came to pick me up from the bus terminal. She said that she had found some books of mine that she had had for a long time. She almost threw them away because of the fire damage, but upon opening the books she discovered that they were mine and that there was a note on the inside of each. She brought me home, and left me the books. Because of a few problems at home I did not open them until yesterday. When I did open them I discovered the number that Rachel had written in one.

I rushed downstairs to my office as soon as supper was cleared away and dialed the number praying that it would still be correct. An answering machine came on and I began explaining who I was. As I was about to hang up, someone answered. It was Rachel's mother. She gave me Rachel's number and I immediately dialed. An hour and a half later I got off the phone with her, after discovering that time and distance can never ruin a true friendship.

I had called at just the time she most needed a friend. Last month she went into premature labor. She was only five and a half months along when her son was born. He lived for twenty minutes, then went to be with his Heavenly Father. God brought us back together. I never understood how such a chain of events could be a blessing. Not only have they made us each who we are today, but they led us back to each other, with just a bit of help.