Friends

I cannot overemphasize the importance of a few close, trustworthy, honesty friends to walk through life with. I’m sure I’m preaching to the choir, but if you have not invested in at least a couple meaningful friendships over the last year, you really must! I am blessed with more than a few really quality friends and boy have they helped put my life into perspective more times than I can count.

This morning is a great example. I had a really horrible night. A few things factored into this: me choosing to stay up too late, two of my kids waking me up a few times for varied lengths of time, three kids up way too early, and raging pregnancy hormones that have caused me to be extra emotional and completely irrational. My poor husband, with every good intention, happened to call me this morning to check in while I was in the midst of feeling pretty low. So, guess who got an earful and more – yep! I’m sure I don’t have to give any details for you to imagine how the conversation went. He gracefully excused himself once he realized my ranting and tears were not going to end any time in the near future and I was left alone to reflect on my unkind, disrespectful monologue (I hardly gave him room to say anything, not that I was really listening when he did). Of course I felt horrible and wanted to curl up in a corner and bawl my eyes out once he was no longer on the phone. But since that was not an option I bawled for a while in the kitchen, hoping the kids didn’t notice too much. Once I composed myself I knew what I needed to do: call a good friend, and I knew just the one. We have been trying to connect for weeks now and the timing was right since she would be on her way to work. Part of me really didn’t want to talk to anyone but I knew I needed to. Not that I needed to rehash my conversation with my husband or have anyone feel sorry for me, I just needed a good dose of reality, and I knew my friend would give it to me.

And she did. We had such a good conversation. I shared my emotional rollercoaster, without unnecessary details, and she listened and sympathized. And then she shared some of her life, of course putting mine in perspective, and I sympathized. I think we both came away with a better grasp on our situation and more determined to be the women of faith and integrity that we want to be. I love that although we live far apart we can continue to connect on a very real level.

Of course building these types of friendships requires time, energy, and emotions of their own and sometimes the effort to maintain them seems more than it’s worth, but it never is. We need each other, we need to be real, and we need to allow others to carry our burdens with us. We also need to be that for other people. But before we can be that or receive that, we need to know ourselves well enough to choose the right people to be around. What are your values, the things that matter most to you, what is your particular phase of life that currently defines your reality? These answers will help lead you to other people who will be of particular help and importance in your current walk of life. For me my focus and reality is being a wife and mother of young kids and trying to integrate my faith into each area in very real and applicable ways. So the obvious area for me to find friends is either at church or bible study or some other similar venue. I’ve had to be intentional about engaging, following up, going out of my comfort zone at times, and adjusting my schedule to make room for developing friendships. It’s not easy, even for an outgoing person like me, but it is so important.

I really believe that without quality close friends, even if you have an amazing spouse or significant other, you are forfeiting one of the best gifts that life can give. It’s not until you have mornings (or days, weeks or months) like I just had that you can really appreciate the full magnitude of these friendships. At times it might feel like you are stuck on the giving end of a friendship but I guarantee that if you are transparent, real, and engaged you will eventually be at the receiving end (maybe more than you want!).

So, thank you to all of you out there who are this type of friend to me. I know I could have called on quite a few of you this morning and you would have been available and happy to give me a shoulder to cry on. I hope you know how much I value you and how grateful I am for the unique voice each of you is in my life.