Making Friends

It's said that, new friends are silver but old friends are gold. I have always found it easy to make friends. I'm outgoing and chatty and I'd like to think friendly. I love talking to new people and getting to know about them. People are hugely inspiring! Some live such complex and fascinating lives, some live painful and challenging lives, some are busy, some are happy, some are sadly not. Knowing other people can inspire me to make changes within my own life, not to be like someone else, but instead to improve myself and to grow. I love hearing of people overcoming trials, or miraculously, overcoming themselves. 

I have had the enormous privilege of getting to know lots of new people since we moved house. I've walked into two ready made families really. Home ed and church and both have caused me to meet some fascinating, wonderful and inspiring people. I'm grateful for these two groups of people who I feel privileged to call friends, often before we've even met. 

I feel strongly that social media has changed the way we make and communicate with friends. Some of my newest and yet most treasured friends are people I have never met and yet I feel such a bond and kinship with it's as if we've known each other a lifetime. Social media has given me the opportunity to meet people from all over the world who share the same values, beliefs and trials with me. People who have offered support and wisdom in a way that friends I actually know in person may not have been able to do. 

It's a common misconception that home educated children don't have many friends or find it more difficult to make friends. It's true that they don't see their friends as regularly. They don't have those intense, personal relationships that schooled children have. George 1, like me, has made many friends online through the medium of Minecraft. One of his best friends lives in New York and our families have become connected via Skype. We attend camps, activities and group visits both locally and nationally. The children have friends in York, Dorset, Warwickshire, Wiltshire and Wales (to name but a few). Good friends whom they are excited to spend time with each time we meet. I have also struck up some amazing relationships with the parents of these children. Friendships that will see us through the joys and challenges of home educating our children. 

I feel extremely blessed to have two of the most incredible women I know amongst my list of friends. I have never known a life without them as we have been friends since birth. We've grown up together, grown apart and grown close again. I rarely see either of them and yet I feel a bond of sisterhood with them that will continue into the eternities. 

I also incredibly lucky to have my best friend married to me for time and all eternity. A relationship that provides love, comfort, support, joy and deep deep friendship. At the centre of our marriage is an even greater friend, our Saviour, Jesus Christ. 

How grateful I am for all the wonderful people in my life that I have the privilege to call my friends. Many have been only for a season, some have stood the test of time, all have in some way influenced me for good, shared their wisdom, time and love with me and that's what it's all about.