I graduated from a small, rural high school in a class of about 30 students, including some I’d been with since kindergarten. By our senior year our class knew each other pretty well.

I moved away after high school, first to college and then to follow jobs, so I lost touch with those old companions.

In the years since graduation I have only attended one of the annual all-grade reunions held by the alumni association. I was the only one from my year at that reunion and from reading the alumni newsletter I’ve seen that there are seldom any attendees from my graduation year, so I have never attended since.

A couple of months ago there was a notice in the newsletter about a mini-reunion being planned for just my class. It would be a casual dinner with an opportunity to visit and catch up with classmates.  It sounded like fun and I’m now living nearby, so I decided to attend and made plans to quickly lose at least ten pounds.

When I heard no further updates I supposed there hadn’t been enough interest and the event had been called off, so I forgot about starting a crash diet and returned to business as usual.

The weekend before the proposed dinner I got a phone call from the organizer to confirm my attendance. The reunion was on. I would just have to take my extra pounds with me.

When I walked into the restaurant banquet room that night and looked around, what I saw was a couple of dozen post-middle-aged strangers. Closer inspection revealed vague resemblances to my classmates, or at least to their parents. But what could I have in common with them after all these years?

Then the oddest thing happened. As the evening wore on and we began to get reacquainted and share laughs over long-forgotten memories… I saw my old friends begin to grow younger.

At the end of the evening when we bid farewell…I realized that not one dear,  familiar face had changed a bit since graduation!

That room-full of mostly chubby, gray-haired, and wrinkly strangers had been transformed by the magic of relationship.

Relationship changes everything. The closer a relationship is, the greater the impact it has.

Our relationships with God and our fellow believers are the only treasures we can take with us into Eternity, as well, so I want to cultivate those relationships everyday.

I am looking forward to that grand heavenly reunion…no dieting necessary.