Does it seem possible to you? The snow has just finished melting into the ground, the tiny blades of green grass have only begun to pierce the unfrozen soil, and yet the crickets are singing outside my window. Summer crickets, of all things. Bells peal through the valley as rain falls softly, not pelting and cold; a promise of newness comes.

I have a friend who lives far away from me. Oceans in fact. For years we were separated - time and circumstance had made us strangers. But she is one of those friends with whom after a 10 year absence you pick up mid-sentence, right where you left off. You just sigh and say, "Anyway..."

Those ten years had brought ups and downs, like years will do for anyone. But when I found her again, I was at a place in my life when the frozen rains had been beating down a little too long, and I needed her cricket song. She is spring to me; and I have learned that friends, my true friends, bring to my life the promise of a newness to come.