So, I have begun to Facebook...Wow!  I'm impressed.  Within minutes I was connecting with long-lost friends.  Some I haven't heard from or seen since High School.  Some that stretch back to kindergarten days.

Some of these friendships were light and soft, just acquaintances.  Worthy of a smile and a nod, and a response of help or some time to listen when needed.  Some others were my closest confidants.  People who knew my soul.  And for some reason or another we have grown apart.  It's these connections that throw you from your chair when the screen pops up with, "You and So-and-so are now friends."  You are now friends.  And after so many years...

God met Jeremiah in Judah and asked him "What do you see?" (Jeremiah 1:11).  Your Bible reads that Jeremiah responded "I see the branch of an almond tree."  In fact, the Hebrew says just that, but we lose the second level of meaning.  An almond tree was called the tree of awakening (shaqed), apparently because it blooms early in the Spring.  Martin Luther preferred the literal.  To this day the updated Luther Bible still reads, "I see a branch awakening."

God restores our connections.  An old branch, frozen solid in winter, awakens again.  Sap starts to run.  Life starts to blossom.

Of course it can be slow.  I have noticed that some relationships really seem renewed, but with others there is little connection made; just a cyber-connection that shares our pictures with one another.  But we're connected.  And I'm happy for that.  For me as a Christian, its a little parable about Church.

"You are now friends. "  I hope so.