May 23, 2016 3 min read

I was away last weekend on an overnight women’s retreat with my church. I got a text message during the middle of a period of quiet reflection that said, “We’ll be at your house around 2 p.m.” I was so excited I nearly yelped, but I managed to restrain it to an almost-silent gasp.

Let me back up a little bit. Several years ago, when my middle girl was barely in grade school, she made a new friend through Girl Scouts. This girl is a lot like my girl in many ways. She loves to laugh, is spunky, somewhat sassy, loving and kinder to others than she is to herself. They are the perfect pair.

For several years, they were inseparable. My girl called her parents Mom and Dad, and she did likewise with my husband and me. Weeks would go by where we parents just switched off having both girls at a time. I referred to my four children. The laundry became mixed up to the point where I stopped recognizing which girl’s clothes belonged to whom.

And then one day, the family announced they were moving. Family in their home state down South were ill and needed help, and there was no way around it. Over the course of a few weeks, they packed up and planned to leave. The girls were devastated and spent many hours hugging and crying together. We all shed some tears on the final evening. Then, they were gone.

She emails us sometimes. The girls talk on the phone occasionally, and Facetime has made it possible to see her in real time although we are far away. But there has been something missing from my daughter since her best friend moved. She has known loss on a personal level, and doesn’t that always change us?

So when I got the text last weekend, I could barely contain myself. We were told they were trying to come up North for a visit, but the timing was unknown. I was so overjoyed that I would be seeing my other daughter in such a short time, and the fact she was bunking with us while her family was local was an added bonus.

My husband and I were on the phone when their car pulled up the driveway (I had to hear, if not see, the joy of their reunion). I was not disappointed by their joyful squeals. I got to talk to her mom for a second, and my heart was so full.

In the days afterward, life seemed so complete that I have been able to momentarily forget that she is leaving us again at some point. They settled back into their old routines as if no time has passed since their last meeting.

I am not sure why God allowed their family to need to move away from ours, but I learned something at the retreat that applies. When we don’t understand something, it’s because when we look at the tapestry of our lives, we see the back of it, with all of the knots and ends of strings and imperfections showing. But when God looks at them, he sees only the beautiful picture that has been made.

This girl is definitely a bold color in the tapestry of our life. And I’m so very grateful God keeps weaving her back in.

Laura Zoeller can be reached at zoeller5@verizon.net.