Nothing like a little James Taylor number running rampant through your head. You're welcome.
Today has been crazy busy, in the best way. I had a good deal of cooking that needed to be done, so after lunch I tackled it. While I was tinkering away in the kitchen, Kate & Lia were busy with their own creative endeavors, and the wee ones were napping. This left me with some relative quiet, and lots of time to ponder and pray.
All of today's pondering and prayer has revolved around the topic of friendship. Early this morning, I had two conversations that put my mind on that path, and as the day went on, I began to really think about the people in my life. Following are some observations I've made.
Not every person that crosses our paths will be our true, bosom friend. We can't be
intimate with everyone. A dear, dear friend once encouraged me to wait and allow the Lord to bring friends into my life, as opposed to walking in my own wisdom. I started to pay attention, and was able to see Him doing just that. It is these very people that teach me what it is to
be a friend, to love, to lay down my life. With their love,
they show me Jesus. I'm not naming names, but I hope you'll see yourself here and know how precious you are to me!
I can't even tell you all I've learned from one particular friend, but two of the most important are
constancy and
openness. If she is your friend, it's for real and it's for keeps! Such peace to know that
she's not going anywhere, even when I'm an idiot.
And openness... I laugh when I remember this, but I'll never forget it. There was a time when we first became friends, that we hadn't seen each other for a while. Upon our next meeting, she grabbed me and hugged me, and just kept holding on, telling me how she'd missed me. I was so unused to such honest displays of love! I didn't know quite how to react. I totally felt the same way, but I would never have expressed it, for fear of scaring her away! It was after many of these moments that I realized, "this person LOVES me"! Amazing.
How often do I miss the chance to shower love on someone dear to me because of pride or insecurity?
Then there are the friends that just excel at
giving, and who's very lives are inviting. The ones who say, without hesitation, "I'll take your kids", or "Y'all are welcome to eat here"... These are the ones you can drop in on without wondering if it's a bother. The ones that treat you like family. I never realized how UN-giving, how uninviting I can be until God gave me a couple of these. I can't tell you how often I pray, after talking to or being with one or two in particular, that
the Lord will take away my resistance and help me to give more of myself, my time, my space.
Another trait that I hope God works more and more in me, that I love in my friends, is
safety, which lies in their own
vulnerability, and also in their
strength. Do you know the friend I'm describing, the one you would just feel safe to lay your head on her shoulder and cry your eyes out? I call it the Mama in them, but whatever it is, it just calls to me, and draws me to them like crazy. To be able
to be weak in their presence while drawing from their strength. Such a precious gift. I struggle most with being vulnerable, and what a huge disservice to my friends that is. God is really calling me to the carpet on this one, showing me that
being strong is different than being hard. Change me, Lord!
Then there have been the
very few times in my life, God has given me a friendship that didn't so much as develop, but just
was... Just a deep and almost immediate
connection that draws us one to the other. These are gifts to be treasured, because the Lord just puts it there, in your heart, this love for someone as yet unknown. A couple of faces come to mind, and it brings tears to my eyes, because
I love you so, and it's simply the Lord.
I was thinking today that I don't always give the relationships God gives me the priority they deserve. Have you ever thought about the fact that of all the things we pursue in this life, the only things eternal are our relationships with God and with each other, as brothers & sisters in Christ? Eternal relationships. Wow.
One thing in my life that gets in the way of nurturing relationships is busyness. Somewhere along the way, we've made being busy a virtue. But is it? Martha sure thought so, but Jesus? Not so much. He was far more concerned with intimacy.
I once had lunch at the home of a sweet Mennonite girl and several of her friends. It was a study in balance, as they both worked together and rested together. This was not like visiting a home of someone who can't sit still. This was fluid, peaceful.
I watched them as they worked together to prepare a meal. I watched them
relax and enjoy it. Then work together to clean it up, helping each other with the several small children. Afterward, during coffee, the knitting needles and mending baskets came out, while the talk turned to both daily life and the things of God. The shelves were heavy with canned goods they had made together on other days like this day. Call me old fashioned, but I came away from there feeling like we've got it so wrong in some ways. I'm not an advocate of women being busybodies, but to work together side by side, to honor God by being productive while still reaping the benefit of fellowship... I just love that, and I think He does, too.
I haven't always appreciated having friends the way I do today, and I sure haven't known how to
be a friend, but in this, the Lord is teaching me. Changing me. Merciful and so, so sweet, is He!
As if in confirmation, my oldest came to me this afternoon, in the midst of my silent pondering, to ask if she might send e-cards to some of her friends. I love how He does that!
Even as I read back over this, I'm tempted to delete it. So cheesy, my pride says. People are going to think you're nuts, screams the insecurity. But I'm leaving it. I have been blessed beyond measure and I want to say how thankful I am and
how humbled I am to have such people choose to call me friend.
All my love,
Em
