Our friendship began with Joni's penpal ad in a monthly magazine. When I
answered that ad several years ago, I never could have imagined the journey I
was setting out upon! My first letter to her, one of introduction, went
unanswered for three months. I'd long since forgotten writing it when her
response finally arrived.
In spite of that slow start, we soon discovered much in common -- a shared love
of writing and music and gardening and needlework -- but in many ways our lives
were vastly different. She was thirty-three and recovering from a second abusive
marriage and divorce; I was ten years older and had been married since I was a
teenager to the love of my life. Joni had routinely endured abuse I could
scarcely imagine. She did not believe in God; I had a lifelong faith which,
while shaky at times, had a firm foundation.
Our friendship flourished by way of the inky trail. We exchanged recipes and
cross-stitch patterns and garden seeds. Our lives became happily entwined as our
frequent letters traveled across the many miles between us. The friendship
filled a need in both of us for that special relationship neither of us was
fortunate enough to have with our biological sisters. She poured out her heart
to me, as though the simple act of telling me the horrors of her life would
somehow cleanse her soul and put her shattered hopes and dreams back together
again. I listened and prayed and tried my best to help her find the peace she
was so desperately searching for in her life. The long letters soon were
interspersed with equally lengthy phone calls. We laughed and cried together,
and though a thousand miles separated us, we became sisters of the heart.
In the summer of '96, Joni's world once again came crashing down around her as a
relationship she was involved in abruptly ended. She became suicidal and many
times in the wee hours of the mornings to follow, I found myself on the phone
with her, reassuring my precious friend that she was loved and that her life
could again be worth living. My insistence that she seek professional help fell
on deaf ears. It seemed as though there was little I could do as I beseeched God
to show me a way to help her.
One day I was walking through the mall with Joni very much on my mind. I
wandered into a card shop, where my attention was immediately drawn to a music
box on a shelf among many other music boxes. It was a small box with a short
poem of friendship in its lid. As I opened it, my mind was filled with good
memories as it played "You Are My Sunshine," a song I'd often sung to my
children in their childhood years. I listened to the melody and then closed the
lid and continued on my way. As I once again resumed my shopping, I felt the
gentle touch of an unseen hand on my shoulder guiding me back to the shop and an
urgent need to send that music box to Joni. I bought it and mailed
it to her the following day.
Three days passed before I answered my phone to find Joni there crying. She
managed, between her tears, to explain to me that she had decided to end her
life and had made a list of ten things she needed to do first. One item on that
list was to hear the song "You Are My Sunshine" one last time. It was a song
she'd loved as a child and brought back happy memories of those days. Having it
come to her as it did reminded her of the love of her faraway friend and
prompted her to add one more thing to her list -- she wanted to come meet me.
Two very long days later, Joni arrived on my doorstep. What a joy it was to
finally meet this friend I'd come to love so dearly. We talked and cried and
laughed a lot in the next five days and through the miracle of our friendship,
she discovered a desire to live again. As for me, my faith in God was
strengthened as I watched in amazement the way He used a simple childhood song
in a music box sent to a friend. I learned never to doubt the stirrings of a
small still voice or the touch of an angel's hand.
God truly does work in mysterious ways, or perhaps His answers to His children's
heartfelt prayers are not so mysterious at all. Whatever the explanation, I
thank Him for my friendship with Joni and for that tiny treasure of a music box.
Karen Briggs kjbriggs@angelfire.com
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