This last August, I enjoyed going to my 30th high school reunion, if nothing more than to see a bunch of faces that I, 30 years ago and some, used to see day in and day out at school- although, in much younger versions.

That’s the thing about reunions- for those that go, everyone there looks mostly like they did in the past, but each person is still somehow different than they used to be. Some look much older than they used to, some look younger, and some look surprisingly the same. Some have longer hair, some have less hair, some have no hair, some have chest hair; some have more weight, some have less weight; some have more wait, some have less wait. Some wear clothes and hairstyles completely different than what they used to sport. Some laugh easier than they used to, and some cry easier than they used to. Some people are “less open” than they once were. Some people are “more open” now.

One of my favorite moments at the reunion, though, was seeing, and then sitting at dinner with my old “twin” Kristy and her husband, and being able to talk for a short while about life.

I call Kristy my twin for one main reason. On August 4, 1968, both of us came into this world and took our first breaths.

Our life paths didn’t didn’t touch until we were both sixth graders at Eisenhower Elementary School here in Albuquerque. But as chance would have it, we ended up attending middle school and high school in the same schools as well, and we had a class or two together most of those school years.

My mind is often foggy about my youth, and I’m not sure why much of the time. I remember a few incandescent moments pretty clearly, but details from daily life then tend to escape me. What I do remember about Kristy back then, back in those preteen and teenage years when we were shaping inside, is that she was smart and always kind. I spent a lot of those years deep inside, I think, by choice, as a means of survival, but Kristy was always a friendly presence around me. Around everybody.

We weren’t the best of friends in those years, but we were around each other enough we knew each other well enough. And we knew we shared the same birth date, which was a unique bond between us, so we always had a ground of welcomeness between us. Still, she had her life and extracurricular interests and friends, and I had mine.

After high school, our paths separated, as many high school friendships do, and life took over. Years went by, and we lived our lives. And then Facebook happened, nearly 9 years ago, with a few messes exchanged in the intermittent years.

And then a 30th class reunion.

Our lives went in fairly different arcs over those 30 some years. Kristy married a college classmate and then became a mom five times, and then a sixth. I married somewhere in the middle of those three decades into a relationship that ended two years later without kiddos. Kristy has lived from coast to coast and both in and out of the country. I’ve wandered around a little bit myself too- not like her, but a bit.

Kristy did attend UNM when I was there, like a lot of Albuquerque kids, and she finished her degree. But as her formal education was winding down, her heart was ramping up, and after she left college, she met grace, and holiness, and a cross, and a Holy Spirit. And her life changed radically.

Faith filled the sails of her purpose.

I knew her in school as kind. I experienced her at the reunion full of compassion and conviction. Kristy had found, and then discovered the fulness of her life in, Christ.

And so at this 30th class reunion, I got to sit and talk with my old twin. Except this time, our relationship had an extra dimension of family to it as we talked about Christ and living life in faith in Him.

I find these days, I don’t do that as much now as I once did, in a very dependent and dynamic way. If you are around Kristy much, you end up seeing that she tries to live it out fully. Which is encouraging to the likes of folks like me.

Her old twin.

Kristy is also a writer. She has kept an amazing archive of her life experiences and her life reflections online at her blog Prone to Wonder.