The Healing Journey

June 28, 2026

Reach out and touch someone you loved

By Cynthia Hahn

I have recently gotten back in touch with a very old friend. It’s such a blessing! We have a phone call every Sunday afternoon to try and catch up in detail.

I had a girlfriend that I met at my church when we were confirmation class age, around 11 or 12. The church was halfway between our school districts, so we did not go to the same schools. We enjoyed many church activities together like choir and our youth group. We became close personal friends and shared everything with each other. Neither one of us was very popular in our schools in junior high and early high school, but we had each other to talk to. Once we even went to a church sleep-away camp for 10 days.

We stayed close right through high school. During college, we wrote a lot to each other. One by one, we got married and had our families but we always stayed in touch. We were even at each other’s weddings. For the majority of our adult lives, she lived states away. We did cards, letters, phone calls, etc. to maintain the friendship.

By the time we were around 50, something changed. All communication just stopped. We hadn’t had a quarrel or anything. It’s hard to imagine now but possibly we were both in a bad patch in our lives. I know I was since my first marriage was crumbling.

Well, recently (at least 25 years later), she started coming to my mind more and more. So one day, I took out an old address book of mine and tried calling her last phone number. Praise God! Her husband picked up! After all this time, they were still there. He put my girlfriend on after we confirmed who we were. So very amazing! She had also been thinking of me a lot too.

Since then, we have spent many Sunday afternoons speaking for an hour or two at a time, and we have emailed photos of family. We are close again and sharing everything. This is a wonderful thing because she has health issues, and I’m not sure how long she’ll be around. It has been so good for our souls. The other wonderful thing is that she had lost her faith over the years, but during some health crisis over the past year or two, she regained her faith in God. She said that at some point she “felt Him like a comforting blanket around her.” I’m sure He never actually left her.

Thank God she still had the same landline! It was meant to be.

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