Full Circle

We met for breakfast.
Three friends who grew up together.
Three friends who would not have reconnected had it not been through social media.
Three friends who lived near each other all these years and never knew.

My two friends share the same first name.
Each spells it differently.
One is Cathy with a C.
The other is Kathy with a K.

Cathy with a C lived down the street from me.
There were seven of us girls who all went to school together.
We walked to school, played at recess, and played in our neighborhood together.
When we graduated, there are pictures of us in our caps and gowns on the front lawn.

After high school we lost touch.
I had no idea her sons went to the same school as my children.
I had no idea she was a school teacher and now an assistant principal for another district.
We met for breakfast that turned into lunch and caught up on all the missing years.

In our conversation that day, we spoke of different classmates.
Each of us filled the other in on the whereabouts of some of our old friends.
It was Kathy with a K that brought back so many memories for me.
She also lives nearby and is a school teacher as well.

The decision was made for the three of us to get together.
That happened over the weekend.
We met for breakfast that easily turned into lunch.
I had not seen Kathy with a K for over forty years.

I would have known her anywhere.
The same turned up nose.
The same smile.
The same voice.

Hugs were given and received and we were called to our table.
People around us had come and gone yet we remained.
There were three lives to hear about.
There were children to know and stories to be told.

There were also memories.
Do you remember, was the constant refrain.
What ever happened to…was asked over and over.
Over forty years of life needed to be brought up to date.

For a man, that would be an impossibility.
For a woman, through laughter and tears, it was like we never left each other.
Some things that I remembered they had forgotten as we laughed over the stories.
I had never known that Kathy with a K lived near me all these years.

Our reunion was the first of many.
I discovered that Kathy with a K has a sister who lives less than a mile away from me.
I had never known.
I mused as to why it was so important that we reconnected.

We are still those girls, I concluded and they agreed.
Life twists and turns and we tend to forget the girls we once were.
Underneath the wisps of gray and the wrinkles around our eyes, we are still schoolgirls.
We are still the girls that swam together, jumped rope together, and danced together.

We needed the memories.
We needed the laughs.
We needed to talk to someone else who remembered the girl we once were.
Those girls from long ago seemed very close in that restaurant.

Cathy with a C brought up an old memory.
Kathy with a K had forgotten.
It was about when Kathy with a K got her driver’s license.
Do you remember? Cathy with a C asked with a twinkle in her eye.

You never liked to make left turns, she said trying to stifle laughter.
Kathy with a K told the story.
I had got gotten my license and I was at the intersection near my house.
I had to make a left turn at the stop sign.

I sat there envisioning the intersection, knowing just where she was talking about.
I made the left turn and almost hit a car.
I was scared to death.
I decided right then and there that I would not turn left anymore.

I tried to imagine if that decision was even possible.
If you consistently made left turns, you would be back where you started.
You would go nowhere.
You would have come full circle.

She would never have gotten home if she refused to make a left turn.
She would never have gotten anywhere she needed to go if she never turned left.
The road we travel has many turns and not all of them are to the left.
Sometimes you must turn the other way to get where you’re going.

Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.” (Isaiah 30:21)

If we think we can go through life and never make a left turn we are mistaken.
That decision is not ours to make.
There are often detours on this road of life.
Detours that take us around the path we first intended to travel.

Detours that take us out of our way in order to get where we’re going.
A contented man is the one that enjoys the scenery along the detour, the saying goes.
Taking a road that you never intended but yet somehow enjoying it, is contentment.
Learning so much along the way that you discover the detour was really a blessing.

Kathy with a K did not want to make left turns because of fear.
She soon learned that we cannot protect ourselves from every possible catastrophe.
We travel along this road of life and leave the navigation to the One who knows the Way.
We travel and accept the path before us knowing that we are not alone on this journey.

As I sat there and listened my friends’ reminisces, I realized that we had come full circle.
Perhaps Kathy with a K was on to something.
Perhaps through the years the many left turns brought us right back where we started.
Three friends reconnecting as if the years had somehow melted away.

God is with us in the detours.
God is with us when the path is straight.
God is with us when the path is crooked.
God is with us when the path cannot be seen.

We are all travelers.
We do not always go the way we expected.
Yet we go the way He intended.
Even if it is difficult, God can be trusted.

Our Lord Jesus walked through life here on the way to the cross.
His many detours brought Him to people God had intended for salvation.
People He never would have met had he not obeyed His Father.
Jesus was born, died, was buried, rose again, and ascended to heaven.

Jesus came full circle so that we could follow Him Home.

2 responses to “Full Circle”

1. What a blessing to have childhood friends! I was waiting patiently for the Word and you never disappoint! Thank you, thank you.

   Reply

   • Cathy,
     What a wonderful morning it was! The first of many for the three of us to get together. The longevity of friendship is such a gift. Simply priceless!
     Regina

     Reply