Looking back I realize how many times I was at the beginning of something big and never knew it. The night I went to a party and met my best friend Savannah for one. Getting ready to go out that night I had no idea my life was about to become a whole lot more wonderful. We’ve been best friends for over twenty years now and she has become one of the most important people in my life.

My first encounter with Savannah was a moment of grace—a moment in which an amazing, incredible thing just happened for me, without any effort on my part, without any planning or goal-setting, without my being perfect or good enough. It was an unexpected happening that was so right I could not have created it myself with the awareness I had at the time. I recall a line from a movie, “you are everything I never knew I always wanted”.  That is how I feel about Savannah. I’m grateful I didn’t have to write a list of “100 qualities I want in a best friend” or say affirmations to bring her into my life. I could not have anticipated everything she has come to mean to me.

I have been thinking for almost a year about creating this blog. I’ve had the pieces in place for a while, but tonight was the night I finally sat down and wrote. A lot of things had to come together to make this post possible, including my experience of meeting Savannah twenty years ago and my recalling it tonight as I thought about how I wanted to start this online conversation with you.  So it’s possible this beginning is a moment of grace also.