Happy October!

It is Sunday morning and I find myself at the dining table of a hotel suite in St Charles MO.
We are in this nice suite due a mix up in our hotel reservations that took Expedia over an hour to straighten out at the end of a long (but enjoyable) day.

We were blessed and honored to be invited to the wedding and reception of an old friend. We came into the FAA about the same time (he was already a trainee when I arrived at the facility) and have worked together in two different facilities  during our careers. Since he came in as a young guy and I came in as an old guy, he is still working in his career.

At some point, I will probably decide to write about marriage struggles, failed marriages and second marriages, but for today I'll stick with wishing this new family the very best as they venture into the blending of their two families. My buddy is going to need some counseling (and occasional testosterone outings) -- he'll be living with his wife and four girls (2 his, 2 hers), three of them teenagers!

It was pretty great getting to reconnect with some old air traffic friends. We ended up in a corner away from family and other friends of the wedding party. (I'm not sure if that was by design or just a coincidence.) These were guys (and their wives) that the groom had worked with and I had come to know over the years. I had also worked with a couple of them.

I also got to meet some of the groom's non-air traffic friends. He always introduced me with the additional "John does magic and uses it to share the gospel" bit, so transition into a conversation about the gospel was pretty easy.
And that was a good thing since the week was coming to an end and I still had not completed my part in the one week challenge of sharing "God loves you" and "Jesus died for you."
I did get to have a couple of conversations talking about what I do in sharing the gospel, both through camps and magic shows, as well as through preaching from the pulpit. It does make it easier to share the simple message that "God loves you and Jesus died for you."

Later this morning we'll meet with some other friends and catch up on their lives.
In the day-to-day grind, I often forget about the many people that have touched my life in some way and then moved on. We have such technology available that we shouldn't lose touch with those dear friends and yet, we often do. I really need to make an effort to move beyond the impersonal social media contacts that have taken the place of true friendships today. It is sad that I've fallen into the trap of placing dear friends into the group of Facebook friends or Twitter followers rather than actually talking to them and being with them from time to time.

It's no wonder we have such a difficult time communicating with one another when most messages come in the form of 140 character tweets or cleverly constructed memes.
As much as it pains me to actually talk to people, I think I'm going to challenge myself to have at least one genuinely meaningful conversation with someone (other than Chris) everyday. That probably sounds too simple for most of you, but there are many days that Chris is the only person I see (and I'm okay with that!).

I'm not a list maker, but I guess I'll need to become one.
At the top of every daily to do list:
Talk to someone other than Chris
Ugh!
It may be more than I can accomplish!

Maybe you have an old friend that would be blessed by a call.
Why not do it today?

John <><