So. Last week, I was able to have breakfast with my cousin.

When we were growing up, we saw each other a lot, practically every weekend; sometimes until the wee hours of the morning.

I miss the games of Monopoly, and LIFE, playing hide and seek in the tall grass field next door until well after dark, the camp fires, and the times when we watched the vacation photos off those slides, on that funny little screen.

There’s a funny thing about cousins.

They get you when no one else does, because they were there when no one else was.

This cousin in particular, was a soft place for me to land when I was a high schooler – her being SO GROWN UP with her age being five years beyond mine.

As a young mom with two littles, a lot of time was spent around her kitchen table, making sense of how things were, how they could be.

We learned together how to trust God, and how to allow Him to lead and guide us through some really rough times.

We both had them, but we held on tight.

Somewhere when our kids became full of school activities, and life got crazy – we lost each other.

Well, not really.

Our hearts have been joined all these years none the less.  

We just couldn’t get together as much as we liked.

But you know what?

Being together again last week, seemed to begin closing that gap again.

We are still so much alike, maybe even more now, and we know that we can still benefit each other by just spending time together, telling our stories.

Another thing that we know is that we can help some outside of our family as well.

There are, near as I can tell, only a few other relationships in our lives that can compare to the cousin relationship, and they would be a sibling, a spouse, or if you’re lucky enough a BFF.

These are the ones who can help soothe your soul, hide your crazy, or talk you off the ledge.

All this being said, what my cousin, what my siblings, what my Spouse and what my BFF all know for sure –

Even we will fail.

Humans are not infallible.

We can say we want to help, and truly mean it, but for whatever reason there is a disconnect.

We can strive for that perfection, but will not really ever reach it, at least not here on earth.

So even with all of these human fail safes in place, there still is only ONE who can foot the bill – Perfectly – Forever.

His name is Jesus. 

I read this article, 7 Ways Jesus is the Best Friend You Could Ever Have.

I was impressed by the simplicity with which the author describes what an authentic friendship with Jesus looks like.

She begins by stating that ” Christians think of Jesus as their Lord, Savior, King and Master. However, believers rarely think of Jesus as being a close friend. Though that might sound strange to you at first, Jesus actually wants us to think this way.”

Clicking on the link above will take you to the complete article.

Let me end by saying that I hope you have those in your life who will give you the boost you need, or even the kick in the pants if you are stalled out somewhere.

A cousin, a sibling, a BFF, or a spouse, even a blogger friend; but even in the absence of one of those, you can always give Jesus a try.

I would welcome your dialog if you need some help getting started.

I hope you’ve found this helpful.

Until next time…