BFFs and other good buddies

Hello there! Welcome to my front porch, as my website always says.

My husband and I are very blessed to have friends who are a couple. We've all been married to our spouses for so long that we finish each other's sentences and then everybody laughs. You know how that is.

Recently, this dear couple retired and moved close to us in Arkansas and it has enriched my life beyond imagination. There is just something special about being able to reminisce and chuckle over events that occurred years and years ago. This is a picture of the 4 of us - and "Charlie" my infamous Labrador retriever.

There are others who have played a big part in my life, too, and I want to show you some of them. There's a lovely group of cancer survivors who went to Little Rock for the Race for the Cure last year, then posed for this picture. I'm the one on the right.

And, of course, I consider many other authors as friends. Although I don't get to see them as often as I'd like, we do keep in touch by email. What would we shut-in writers do without the Internet? Go crazy? Most people think we are already a bit strange. I agree. It takes a special kind of person to live a fictional life for her characters, then be able to return to reality and relate to REAL folks. But authors understand each other. We know how hard we work and how life can interfere with art to the point where we just want to run screaming from the computer and never come back. But we always return. Because we are compelled to write. And because in many cases, like mine, we feel that our telling of uplifting, helpful stories is our personal ministry. We all know what happened to Jonah when he tried to run from the job God had given him! So we hunker down and do our best and pray that something we write will please God and heal someone else's heart. For me, having friends who listen and understand without condemnation is the biggest blessing of all. It is my sincere hope that I, too, am that kind of friend.

Left to right, Mae Nunn, Irene Brand, Debbie Clopton, Marta Perry,Valerie Hansen, Margaret Daley, Terri Reed, then the other picture, Lenora Worth and Marta Perry WITH APOLOGIES TO THOSE SPECIAL BUDDIES WHOSE PICTURES I DON'T HAPPEN TO HAVE HANDY. We don't get together nearly as often as we'd like. That's the thing about friendships, though. They can last even when the parties are separated by many miles.

Blessings,

Valerie Hansen