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True friends are hard to find. 

They stick closer than family, and often know you better. They pray bigger things for you than you pray for yourself. They believe with you when your faith is weak. They make space for you when life falls apart, and they rejoice with you when all is well. Most importantly, true friends remind you in every encounter who and what is most important.

- "True Friends are Hard to Find" by Kelly Needham, Desiring God blog

We sit across from the table from one another at the no frills Mexican restaurant on the edge of my 'hood. We no longer need to look at the menu- the order is always the same, always tacos, juevos and tocino, tostado for me, and  juevos, tocino, papas y queso, tostado for her. We cover the eggs with warm salsa, spooned from a plastic cup. We start with coffee and then accept refills about 4 times, the last one reluctantly, before we recognize that one more cup may lead to all-day tremors. We have a list, because time passes way too quickly and we are easily distracted and there are things that have to be spoken out-loud, too complicated for text and the quick crossings of life during our normal week.

About an hour into the early morning rendezvous, she receives a text from home.
Where are you?
She sends a picture of me holding coffee.
A smiley emoji comes as a reply, and a moment later,
Good for you.
And then the dot-dot-dot of activity on the other side of screen. At the ding of a new text, my friend shows me her screen and Proverbs 27:17-
Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another.

And with that, both of us take a deep breath of profound thankfulness.