The year was 1975 (51 years ago)…… I was 23 years old, married, no children yet, working at Eastman. Carl and I had joined a church and as it turned out, we would be attending that church for the next 48 years. My very first ministry opportunity was teaching a little class of 3 and 4 year olds…… they were called the Mission Friends.
I know you aren’t supposed to have favorites, but little Ashley was so smart and adorable. She had white blonde hair and wore white high-top Buster Brown walkers….. as every 2-year old was supposed to do back then! A child’s feet just will not develop properly unless they’re walking in a pair of Buster Browns! (Who even knows the kind of “foot problems” the kids of today will have…. them running around barefoot like they do!!) Ashley probably wasn’t even supposed to be in that class…… she was only about 2 at the time. But if she wanted to be in there with her older brother, I was totally fine with that. I think even then, the Lord was knitting my heart to hers.
Well, moving the clock forward,……. I eventually found myself teaching in the Youth Department and eventually, young Ashley wound up in my class again! If she’s 15….. I’m 36. Twenty one years difference in our ages……. but there was just always something special about her…… her interest in the Word, her attentiveness in class, her faithfulness……. and so, after she graduated from college, I asked her to come back to the High School Class — as a teacher — us teaching together. And this began our official relationship as dear friends who loved to study the Word together, teach together, and discuss how to encourage and challenge our teens.
But she did have a life, and it was during her 20’s that she fell in love and wound up getting married. She felt like she should step down from the Teen class so she and her husband could attend a couples class together……. as well they should!
But move the clock forward, …….and at this church, we began a Ladies Ministry. Ashley and I sorta became the resident “Bible Teachers”, if you will! By this time she was in her 30’s…… and I was in my 50’s. I remember one time…. when PodCasts had hit the scene…. we decided to do an in-person Bible Study PodCast on 2 Corinthians. We worked thru the study over a period of several months. Our thought was to show the ladies how exciting it is for 2 women to get together and read God’s Word and then discuss it, analyze it, and wonder about it! One of the funniest aspects of all that…… we had to do some element of prep, and so we’d go to Starbucks to “practice”! It was like we WERE podcasters (in our minds) except we didn’t have a microphone. I remember one particular time, there was no table. But not to be dissuaded, we just sat at the “community bar”. It was long, with chairs down both sides and about a 4 inch separation divider down the middle. There Ashley and I sat…. side by side, just “doing our thing”, talking about Paul, about the Corinthian church, about his letter to them….. with our “audience” directly in front of us ……which happened to be an unsuspecting guy who just came in for coffee and to do a little computer work! There he sat, on the other side of the 4″ divider! There we sat, happy in Jesus, talking about Paul like he was our best friend. (And we did grow to love him so!!) But as for our “audience”….. we felt like he kept looking around, wondering “what’s going on here…what do these crazy women think they’re doing! They act like they’re on TV or something! Have they lost their minds?!!” No….. we weren’t crazy and we hadn’t lost our minds….. and even if no one in Starbucks thought we were funny, we thought we were hilarious…..having the time of our lives!
Moving ahead……. at the end of 48 years, life happens and things change and we wound up leaving that church, as did Ashley and her family. But interestingly, we wound up at different churches. We loved each other dearly, but our relationship was not dependent on being at the same church. God sent us where He sent us and now we both attend and serve separately, making new friends….. but never letting go of the old ones! We’re still connected, Ashley and I….. connected in Christ. And actually we just recently got back from a roadtrip to Birmingham, where we went to see a couple of podcasters we like….. Big Mama and Boo Mama (Melanie Shankle and Sophie Hudson) who were doing a live podcast in front of an audience! Our seats were in the back, which is probably a good thing, or otherwise we might have jumped up on that stage and grabbed that microphone, telling them — “Hey! We had this idea first!”
Ashley is now 52…… and I’m 74! And we have been loving Jesus together since that child was 2 years old. I still marvel at the exceedingly abundant MORE that God is always up to……more than we even know to ask, think, or imagine (Eph.3:20)
So….. as I ponder the gift of friendship, I’m wondering……would you like to have deeper and more meaningful friendships and relationships? ……. it will start with who YOU are in Christ, ……and then go find someone to tell that to, maybe teach a class, but ever how you do it…..pour yourself into someone else’s life….sharing with them who Christ is, how exited you are about Him, where you’ve heard Him speak to you in His Word — and God will do the rest! Ashley has put it this way: “I love studying God’s Word with you, but it’s more than just studying. More accurately, it has felt like a sweet communion with the THREE of us…..you, me, and God.”
Everyone needs an “Ashley”…..but don’t overlook the possibility — you might find her in white high-top walkers in the 2-year old class! God is creative that way!
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