The Long Arc of Connection

I had a wonderful surprise waiting for me in my Facebook friend requests today.

A man I met back in 2017 at a John Maxwell conference sent me a friend request.

We had been Facebook friends before—but in December 2021, Facebook deactivated my account for reasons I never fully understood, and I was never able to recover it. With that, I lost thirteen years of photos, videos, memories, and connections with people from all over the world.

It was a quiet kind of loss. One that didn’t make headlines, but mattered deeply.

This man was someone I really liked. We talked at every conference we attended together. We shared thoughtful conversations, laughter, and mutual respect. We even served together as coaches on a transformational leadership mission in Costa Rica.

When my account disappeared, so did the ability to find him again. I tried. I searched. And eventually, I let it go.

And then today—four years later—there he was.

A simple friend request.

A quiet reappearance.

A reminder.

Connection doesn’t always vanish just because time passes or systems fail or paths diverge. Sometimes it simply goes dormant—waiting for the right moment to re-emerge.

Today felt like proof that the threads we weave with others don’t disappear as easily as we think. They stretch. They pause. They hold.

And sometimes, when you least expect it, they find their way back to you.

What a gift.