This morning I made a video Skype call to a friend I met 40 years ago at an international Bible School held on an island off the south coast of Norway. She was from Scotland and I was from the United States, although I used every chance I could, to tell that my grandmother was born in Telemark, Norway.  In my mind I had come home to this place.

I wondered, as I dialed my friend, if it would be like talking to a stranger. Have I changed? Has she changed? Would we remember the same things? Would we find anything to talk about?

The experience at the Bible School had been intense, both regarding our experience of God from a global perspective, and our experience of knowing believers from other parts of the world.  This friend and I had become especially close.

We wrote, after our separation, on the blue airmail paper that was the primary way of contact back then. With the onset of the computer we did a few emails. But today we would see each other’s faces and hear each other’s voices again. After a few comments that reviewed our stories to each other all small talk was over.  Once again we shared only that which was deeply important to us. We shared with trust and with the familiarity of a proven friendship.

If you have had a close relationship that time has interrupted, I encourage you to make contact. It is a joy to know that we can pick up where we left off. Maybe, at a more significant place than where we left off as God has had 40 years to do transformational work.