list #27: my friends named julie

I have FIVE friends named Julie. And I think everyone should be so lucky. Since high school, I’ve had a friend named Julie in my corner to cheer me on, laugh with me, meet me for lunch and generally make my life better. Here they are:

• Julie Holzer was my first such friend, a high school classmate and fellow member of our student diplomatic team. She’s tall, blonde, willowy, brilliant and completely down-to-earth. She can rock a formal dress (she was our prom queen) and engage in intellectual debates with equal aplomb. She and I were also in several Bible studies together, and oh, how I appreciated her thoughtful approach and large measure of grace. (I haven’t seen her in several years, but she’s a mama now, and I’m sure she’s a great one.)

• Julie Piwiec Genteman (Lady Juliette) is part of my 2004 Oxfamily, that group who laughed and cried and traveled and celebrated so much of life together. She lived at our Abilene headquarters, “House 9,” with three lovely roommates, and she rocks the visual art and the Broadway songs and the writing and the fashion. She’s now married and living in St. Louis with the husband and the puppy, and she’s still charming and funny and oh so lovely.

• Julie Danley is part of our small group (with her lanky, lovable husband Tim). I want to be her when I grow up – she’s caring, funny, compassionate, thoughtful, well-read and not afraid to ask questions. She’s a nurse, a mother, a grandmother, a singer, a reader, a woman of God and a dear friend.

• Julie Barcroft, who blogs at Fox and Bird, was a fellow English major at ACU, but we really became friends after college. And oh my, I don’t know what I would do without this girl. She brings me books; she meets me for lunch; she empathizes with me about teaching freshmen and owning tons of books and longing to travel and just life in general. She’s sassy and thoughtful, compassionate and quirky. And she has seriously fabulous hair.

• Julie Keefe is one of my Integrate ladies from New York – she blogs at Magic Beans Workshop. She lives in Cincinnati, where (fingers crossed) some of us will reunite in October. I often hear her voice in my head reminding me that I don’t have to “be the glue person today,” and she sends lovely, handwritten notes through the mail.

I feel so blessed to have these women (and, of course, many other dear friends) in my life. I just wanted to celebrate them today.

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