Tag Archives | friendship

What Do You Do When You Don’t Want to See?

January 29, 2012 in Deep Thinking, Just Life

What do you do when you don’t want to see?

I honestly hadn’t thought about it. I hadn’t considered that there’d come a moment when I didn’t want to see. It’s one thing to be unaware…to not see because your eyes haven’t yet been opened to things. And that was a challenge I anticipated this year. But it’s another to have open eyes which you choose to close because you don’t want to see.

The introvert in me can become quite selfish in relationships. It reaches a breaking point at which it chooses to see no one but itself. It doesn’t want to see that there are other people who need connection even if it doesn’t. In those moments, I often choose not to see. I choose not to see because I don’t want to see. Seeing is particularly hard & messy in those moments. Seeing is exhausting in those moments. Seeing feels like taking one step forward only to take 4 giant leaps backwards.

This past week was one of me not wanting to see. Of more often than not choosing to close my opened eyes because seeing just felt too hard & I was tired of hard. Then I got a note from a dear friend. And I saw. I saw that I’d been refusing to see. Sometimes it takes being seen to make you realize you’ve been choosing not to see & I am grateful for friends who do just that for me – who remind me that I am seen even if I think I’m not…even if I try not to be.

Do you ever not want to see? What do you do in those moments?

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Throwback Sundays…Nothing…and Everything

October 30, 2011 in Throwback Sundays

 

“Mooch and Earl just stayed still and enjoyed nothing…and everything.”

I don’t know…there is just something sweet about that…the ability to sit with someone or a group of people and enjoying nothing and everything all at the same time. I am incredibly blessed to have people I get to do that with here in Nashville. And most weekends, that’s how I spend my time…savoring life…being still with friends I love enjoying nothing…and everything. For that and for them, I am grateful.

It was true then & it’s still true now. Friends with whom you can enjoy nothing…and everything are an absolute gift. And spending time with them is what weekends are made for.

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Ponder…Severest Tests of Friendship

August 20, 2011 in Deep Thinking, Just Life

It is one of the severest tests of friendship to tell your friend his faults.
So to love a man that you cannot bear to see a stain upon him, and to speak painful truth through loving words, that is friendship.
-Henry Ward Beecher

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The Kind of Friends…

August 15, 2011 in Deep Thinking, Just Life

The world has a million things to say about the essence of “friendship.” And while many of them may be true, the last two weeks of life have taught me that true friendship is so much more than I could ever put words to. To say I’ve rediscovered the value of friends who truly walk life with me would be an understatement. I’m talking the kind of friends who you can call or text at any moment whether you are happy or angry or sad. The kind that you can rehash a story with over and over and over…and they’ll actively listen every time. The kind that love you enough to call you out when you need it…even if you don’t want it. The kind that know you inside, outside, & upside down. The ones you couldn’t lie to if you tried. Those friends are truly priceless. And I believe we all need those friends more than we know. My hope for you is that you have friends who truly walk life with you. I think it’s supposed to be that way.

And to those friends who walk life with me all I can say is “thank you!”

If one falls down, his friend can help him up.
But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up! - Ecclesiastes 4:10

 

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The Twenty – #2: The Best Community of People I Know

January 11, 2011 in Just Life, Relationships

When I left my church, I didn’t know for sure where I was going to end up. Or at the very least was too afraid to admit that I did know but Nashville just seemed like too crazy of an option. But, deep down I did know. I knew Nashville was right because one of the things I felt God challenging me with was truly living in community and it seemed

Now I know I talk a lot about relationships. I write about them. I tweet about them. Etc. But, if I’m honest, relationships don’t always come naturally to me because I have an ongoing fight with trust. And community requires trust. If left to my own devices, though, I’ll often keep relationships and community surface level which doesn’t require a whole lot of trust on my part.

But, after my second visit to Nashville last April, something struck me about the community here…at least the community God surrounded me with during that visit…I couldn’t hide. It hit me as I was driving back to Wisconsin that I had told my story more times in those five days, and to strangers nonetheless, than I had in years. And I think at that moment I knew Nashville was exactly where God was going to drop me even if I was too afraid to acknowledge it. It was a place where I wouldn’t be able to hide.

The best community is honestly the people I get to do life with in Nashville. It’s as small as a few close friends and as big as the church I attend. It’s the people I serve alongside on Monday nights with People Loving Nashville and the homeless people we serve. It’s the people in my Village (a.k.a. small group). It’s Journey. And it’s my friends here who don’t fall into any of those.

They are people who I can laugh with, cry with, rest with, worship with, vent to, be silent with, dream with, pray with, work with, be challenged by, and serve with. It is a community that I believe with my whole heart is the reason God brought me to Nashville. It is a community that I get incredibly excited about when I think of how God has used them and will continue to use them for His Kingdom.

It’s people with some of the biggest, most compassionate and servant filled hearts I know. It’s people with some of the craziest God-sized dreams I know. They each have a different story, yet there are common threads that tie all of our stories together. It’s a community I don’t believe happened by chance. It’s a community…it’s people…for whom I am deeply grateful…I believe that God has written each of them into my story for a reason. And it’s the closest thing I’ve experienced to what I believe in my heart is the Church.

What’s the best community of people you know?

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

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