i have a friend

her name is sarah.  sarah and i have seen each other in person probably less than 10 times. i'm sure this kind of friendship is growing more and more common due to the technology of the internet and creation of facebook and other sites like it. but, being one that is old enough to remember a time when there was no email. this is still kind of a funny thing to me. it's one reason i am so very thankful for facebook, the ability to so easily keep in touch with friends and family that are far away.

sarah and i met in toronto. i can't remember exactly what year it was, but it could have been as early as 1999. no later than 2001. my husband was invited to lead worship at a conference being held at a church where sarah and her husband were on staff. my husband and sarah's husband hit it off.  we went back to that conference to lead worship every year for about 4 years. when we recorded jeff's first cd, we did it in canada and sarah sang background vocals with me and another friend. in between those times, jeff and sean would keep in touch via email or phone every once in awhile. sarah and her husband moved to the states about 2 1/2 hours away from us. jeff and sean still kept in contact.

now, sarah and i got along pretty well ever since we met, and genuinely enjoyed hanging out, but i don't think either one of us has the personality to chat it up on the phone. especially when we would only be together for several hours a day for a few days once a year for about five years and then even more sparingly after that. i personally hate talking on the phone.  and then facebook happened. sarah and i became 'facebook friends'.

we have quite a bit in common nowadays. sometimes i feel like i could copy and paste her status updates onto my own. she has 2 boys that are near the same age as my older 2. and she homeschools them. we both love football, although, our cities are bitter rivals.  we both love photography. she is far and away the better of the two of us. her stuff is beautiful. we both have issues with grammar, as far as it being a pet peeve. (their, there and they're are three different words with three different meanings) although, again, she does have a better grasp of that subject than i.

sarah knows who she is and she tells you, good or bad. she is a great writer. she has a blog focusing on gratitudes.  i love reading them.  she can capture her thoughts and put them into words in such a beautiful way. her blog is called the hatching of a heart. she puts things into a perspective that i wouldn't think of. it's so great to see things through the eyes of someone else and see it a different way and have it affect you. 

one reason i really like sarah is because she's real. do you know what i mean? she doesn't hide behind fluff stuff. she, as a person, encourages me to be who i am. through her blog and her comments on statuses about everyday mundane things, encourages me that i can be who god made me to be. i don't have to pretend to be someone else. i can be me and i am thankful for her.

i have a friend, and her name is sarah.