Tag Archives: courage

Those Things We Call Friendships

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“I do not wish to treat friendships daintily, but with the roughest of courage. When they are real, they are not glass threads or frost-work, but rather the solidest things we know.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

We toss the word “friendship” around loosely these days and in doing so we’ve cheapened it’s meaning. A lot of what we call friendships are merely connections.

Connections are those people whom you say you’ll get together with…and you do…six months later. They’re the people you probably won’t hear from unless you reach out to them or bump into them around town. Most of what they know about your life comes from Facebook and Instagram, and when someone asks them about you they’re response will likely be centered around what you do for a living.

Connections aren’t bad but I’m learning it’s dangerous to call them friendships. 

Friendships are those people for whom you rearrange your calendar. They’re the ones who text or call just to share a funny or exciting story from their day. They’re the ones you text or call for the same reasons. They’re the ones who give you a hard time if they find out about a significant life event of yours on social media before hearing it from you directly, the ones who know the details of your life that are too sacred for social media. When someone asks them about you, they proudly share details about who you are and what you mean to them, not just what you do.

Friendships are hard to find. And they’re not so much waiting to be found as they are waiting to be built. 

As I get older, I become more convinced that true friendships are relationships almost as sacred as a marriage and almost as hard to come by. Now, I’m not married and it’s a different kind of intimacy, but I know that any true relationship requires vulnerability and vulnerability in any context is hard work.

With the wisdom of hindsight, I realize that many relationships I thought were friendships were merely connections. Again, those connections aren’t bad but believing they were friendships left me failing to understand the value of actual friendships. Oftentimes, while I enjoyed the company of those connections, I felt like something was missing. That missing feeling left me hesitant to place too much value on friendship at all.

As my understanding of what friendship truly is deepens, I can honestly say that I have some of the first true friendships of my life now at the age of 29. Some of those friendships are a few years old now, and the older a friendship gets the more valuable and treasured it becomes. I can also say that for the first time in my life I understand the responsibility and gift of being a friend to others. It is not a role to be taken lightly.

I agreed to meet a couple of friends for lunch. We had discussed a 12pm-ish meeting time so I left my apartment accordingly. Halfway to the destination I received a text that is was going to be 12:30. Okay, I’ll go to the nearby park and knock out some emails on my phone. 12:30 came and went. 12:45 rolled around and one friend said she was almost there. So, I headed to the restaurant. Fifteen minutes later that friend actually showed up. And the other friend another 10 minutes after that. Can I tell you I was upset? I was not a happy camper and my friend could tell. She straight up told me I was unpleasant and almost cancelled lunch because of it. In the moment that made me more upset. But, we pushed through it and lunch was more than enjoyable.

As ugly as those interactions seem in the moment, in hindsight they are some of the most treasured & beautiful because they are moments when friendship is handled with the roughest of courage. In those moments we are reminded that true friends are safe, and that we are loved not in spite of our flaws but as our whole selves – flaws and all.

Oh how I treasure those relationships that I can treat with the roughest of courage. Even when I think the ground has been shaken, my friends quickly show me that our friendship is rock solid. It is grace and love in the flesh.

My Hope for You in 2013

In 2013,
I hope you laugh louder.
That you cry harder.
Smile longer.
I hope you discover more freedom.
That you act more bravely.
Dream bigger.
Seek adventure.
Risk greater.
Fear a bit less.
I hope that you see a little deeper.
That you believe stronger.
Fight longer.
Trust easier.
Love harder.
I hope you are seen more deeply.
That you welcome the awkward.
Speak more honestly.
Practice courage.
Compromise less.
I hope you live wide awake.
That you are more fully present.
Be more.
Do less.
Imagine wildly.
I hope you live more than you exist.
Because life is too short for average.

 

Take Courage – One Word 2013

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It was first word that came to mind when I started thinking about one word for 2013. But I quickly dismissed it as “too easy” because courage has been on my heart a lot recently. It’s also one I’ve written about, talked about, & come to value deeply in the last two and a half years. Honestly, it’s one I thought I had “figured out” on some level.

So I continued to think on it, pray about it, what other word might I need to learn?

But it kept coming up. My thought processes kept leading me back to it.
Last week, the items pictured above landed in my mailbox.
The kicker was late last week: I was digitally thumbing through old blog posts today when I landed on this one:

 If I had courage I would make a decision.
If I had courage I would abandon all material comfort right now, today.
If I had courage I would let people in.
If I had courage I would talk to my brother about his faith.
If I had courage I would pick up the phone.
If I had courage I would speak my mind.
If I had courage I would share my story – even the ugly parts.
If I had courage I would tell him he’s pretty great.
If I had courage I would have a heart to heart conversation with my dad.
If I had courage I would lose a mask or two, for good.

I had one of those painful looking in the mirror moments. Most of the things I wrote on April 18, 2010 I still haven’t had the courage to do. Over two years…mountains of growth I thought…yet I had to be honest that I still didn’t have the courage to do most things on that list. 

 “You’ve got courage ‘figured out,’ huh?” I laughed at myself for a minute. And then I remembered the one thing I learned above all else about “seeing” in 2012 – with it comes responsibility. Responsibility to act. And that requires courage.

That sealed the deal. The last 12 months has been grace to really see life, to see it to the point that I feel it in deep in my soul. Now, it’s time to do something about everything I’ve seen. So 2013 will be about courage: Courage to speak not just think, to embrace freedom, to love unashamedly, to be honest, to do not just dream. Courage to say no, to start & to quit, to choose vulnerability. Courage to stay. Courage to feel. Courage to act.

Do you have a word for 2013? I’d love to hear the story behind it!

Curious what the whole “one word” thing is about? Check this out.

The Conversations of the Yellow Pants

I bought these mustard yellow pants a couple of months back & I love them. I love color & mustard yellow is one my current favs. But what I’ve come to love most are the conversations I end up in when I wear them. Something about yellow pants invites strangers to compliment them, ask questions about them, tell about how they have always yellow pants, etc.

I was sitting at Starbucks today when the guy who had sat down at the counter near me turns & says “You’ve gotta be pretty bold to wear yellow pants.” I responded with something like “The key is to believe you can pull them off.” He proceeded to tell me a story of how when he was young he had yellow pants & he wore them all the time, but as an adult he wouldn’t dare because he could never pull them off.

Starbucks stranger isn’t the first to express this sentiment – wanting to live boldly but holding back because of what other people might think…that’s what it comes down to. It may sound slightly ridiculous, because we are talking about pants after all, but I think the yellow pants incite conversations because deep in each of us lies a desire to be carefree…to live who we are despite what others may or may not think. But most of the time we settle for living that desire vicariously…through TV, movies, books, social media, etc.

When someone tells me they’ve always wanted to pull off yellow pants but never could, I want to ask them how they expect to take risks & follow their dreams, how they expect to live adventurously, to live fully awake soaking up all life has to offer, when they’re afraid to wear a pair of yellow pants.

How would your life look different if your inner child who didn’t worry about what people may or may not think when you wore yellow pants ruled the voices in your head? 

The Twenty – #4: Let Me Introduce You to My Hero

Heroes
Ordinary people
Tools in the hands of a loving Creator
Faithful stewards of their art
Champions of relationships
Leading by example
Action
Impact
Courageous, noble, humble
Servants.

People are people to me. And they always have been. Yes, I have people I look up to and respect but not people that I like to call heroes…that word always seemed a little too much like idolizing someone to me.

Matter of semantics? Maybe. But I’m a bit particular about vocabulary. :)

When I think about people I greatly respect and admire, it’s hard to just pick one. I think just about the last two years and how many incredible people I have met. I couldn’t even begin to introduce you to them all.

But they all have two things in common: they are bold yet humble and they always remember that at the end of the day, relationships are more important than the task at hand.

Who is your hero? And why?

This is the fourth post in a series of twenty. For more on the background, check out this post.