The True Growing of Friendship:

Today as I am writing, I just got done helping a friend move into her new house.  She was moving 15 miles away, but she was moving into the town where she currently works.  She was also moving in with her sister, so this was all in all going to be a great set-up. This day definitely included crazy moments, but all in all, it was definitely a memorable and wonderful one.  It was a great time to help a friend move into her new space and get organized.  Plus, this offered a great opportunity to spend time talking to my friend as we went from one town to the other and laughed a lot as we attempted to move the really heavy boxes and furniture.  

This is a good reminder for me that there is something magical about those pieces of helping a friend and being a part of that kind of friendship.  It is odd to say, but I felt closer to this particular friend after hours of helping her move than I have in the past few months.  It was in this moment where I felt the friendship grow deeper.  We had an opportunity to talk about what is really going on in our lives, I was able to help her become less stressed, and we spent a significant amount of time with each other.  It wasn’t in any way a superficial thing, but a deeper connection.  

Friendship is not always pretty.  Friendship is not necessarily always filled with highs.  They are going to be times not filled with laughs and smiles.  There are going to be times where friendship is hard.  Friends are going to lose family members, going to be stressed out and maybe even lash out here and there, and are going to need other people for help.  This help could be mental, could be spiritual, or even physical in the sense of physically moving heavy boxes from one house to the other.  (There were some HEAVY boxes!) Yes, there are positives to friendships, but in order to experience the really good parts, one has to be ready to deal with the hard.  

There are a lot of verses from the Bible that center around community, fellowship, and friendship.  One that recently struck me was from Ecclesiastes chapter 4 verse 10 which says, “If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up.”  I have had so many friends who have been there for me in the rough moments.  I have been stuck crying over something insignificant, and I know I have a friend’s house that I can run to or a phone number I can call.  I have been blessed with many friends who don’t let me down and keep me upright.  

However, I do think it can be easy to want to put on a facade around people, even our friends.  We have grown up in a culture where we often will answer the question of, “How are you doing,” with an “I’m good or I’m fine,” even when the truth of the matter is we are not good or are not fine.  There are times when we can be struggling, but we may be too fearful to let others know our true honest opinion of how we are doing.  Being vulnerable, even with our friends and our loved ones can be scary.  I believe our friends find themselves in the same boat.  They too are afraid to be vulnerable.  They too have been conditioned to always answer, “I’m fine,” even when they are not.   They may also want to avoid getting a lot of people involved in their life problems, with the fear that they will be ruining other people’s days or causing a distraction/chaos.  

With this, there are a few challenges that I want to give you this week.  The first is to be more vulnerable yourself.  We have been blessed with friends and it is important that we feel we can share our lives with them, even the not so pleasant parts. It is important that we be willing to tell our friends how we really feel without being too overwhelming.  We don’t want to be always complaining or always arguing or always crying.  However, we should be willing to share our thoughts, opinions, and emotions.  

My second challenge is to be willing to look out for your friends.  Not just in the simple asking of how they are, but asking about things that you know may make them stressed or may make them upset.  (not necessarily to upset them, but to see how they are feeling about it).  Offer to help them even when it is not convenient or even when they didn’t necessarily ask for it.  Sometimes being willing to point out the thing that your friend may need help with will be the encouragement to get them to ask for that help.  They may decide they do need help or they do need comfort or support.  Being willing to say that you will stand by them and help or be there for them is a way to open the door for them to accept your help. 

I want to end this blog post with one of my favorite verses from the Bible, and that is Proverbs 17:17 which says, “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for a time of adversity.” This is a good reminder for everyone.  It won’t always be easy, but a good friend and a good brother or sister in Christ loves at all times.  This is not just the emotional response of love, but the actions that are associated with loving someone else.  It is the thinking of ways to serve them or to gift them encouragement or support or to even pray for them.  I pray you grow in the friendships that you have around this next week.