Reconnecting with the Past

My 71st birthday, yesterday, passed very quietly, and I sort of like it like that. I was never one to enjoy birthday parties (except if they were for someone else) and gifts embarrass me because I don't expect them.

But today, in a way, I received a belated gift - a reconnection with the past. A former classmate (both elementary and high school) recently underwent radical surgery, amputation of her leg at the knee. She has been a nun for all these years, and we only recently re-connected. I wasn't lucky at catching her in the rehab center by phone, but I did manage to make a Prayer Shawl and send it to her.

Tonight, I finally caught her with a phone call. It was as if time had stood still. We grew up just a few blocks from each other. Eileen and I talked for a very long time, she in PA and me in NV. She filled me in on all our classmates, and we filled each other in on other aspects of our lives. We reminisced. We philosophized. We got on our soap boxes. We were two Philly girls again. It was a wonderful, wonderful chat.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this. I suppose it's a thank you to the Lord for his goodness in enabling us to re-connect like this. I doubt that I'll ever get a chance to see her, but just to hear her was better than anything I could have asked God for at this moment.

Father, you know so well what I need, exactly when I need it. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart and all of my soul.