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
Tag Archives: friendship
The Kind of Friends…
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
The Twenty – #2: The Best Community of People I Know
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.
When God Brings it Full Circle
When I quit my job at my church in June I left a pastor and his family who I had been doing life with and ministry alongside for 7 years. They were the closest thing to what felt like family I had ever had. About a year a half ago, though, things got messy. Not messy in any scandalous sort of way just messy in the sense that feelings were hurt and relationships honestly looked liked they would end, unable to be repaired. It happens, even in the church, because we’re people and we’re sinful.
But, we pushed on. Ministry continued but relationships were drastically different. It was a lot of work and not a lot of personal. Eventually that got to me because it led to me forgetting that I was working with people and also to not feeling treated like a person. I did a pretty good job, though, of suppressing all of that “for the good of the ministry.” Not until after I left my job at the church did I realize just how much hurt and honestly bitterness I had built up.
I am glad I didn’t realize it until after I left, though, because it allowed me to leave well. I didn’t leave because of the negative things that had happened, I left because God said it was time to go. Since then, God has healed my heart and helped me to truly forgive.
It’s really cool to look back now and see God’s hand in all of it. Had those relationships not changed, I’m not sure I would have been willing to let them go and leave when God said it was time. He detached me and uninvested me because He knew I’d need that in order to follow His calling me away.
It’s also amazing to see how He has brought it full circle and redeemed and restored friendships. It took time…a lot of time and I’ve just been processing it all recently, but God has proven Himself faithful…as always. I am incredibly blessed to still have a friendship with people who have seen me at my best but more importantly at my worst.
My encouragement to you? Fight for the relationships, despite how awkward or uncomfortable or hard it may be, because they are worth it. But also be encouraged when things don’t go well, feelings are hurt, you feel “wronged,” or you don’t handle a situation well, that God is greater than all of it and He will redeem it.
Ponder…A Good Friend
A good friend is a connection to life – a tie to the past, a road to the future, the key to sanity in a totally insane world. -Lois Wyse
I love this description of a good friend. I have a lot of friends. I have a few good (I’ll say great) friends who are just that…keys to sanity in a world that at times seems completely insane. :) And I am beyond grateful for them!
Throwback Sundays…That Person
When I re-read this post, I laughed…almost out loud. This is the first paragraph…
I’m sure you’ve heard the saying before: “Man is not an island.”
Well, let me tell you, I’ve tried, for much of my life, to prove that wrong. I am by nature an introvert. Most of the time I am much happier being by myself. While I enjoy people around people at times it takes a lot of energy out of me and after a few hours I’m usually exhausted. I love extroverts, I admire their ability to interact with people all of the time and not get tired, but that’s just not me.
I laughed because of how much I’ve changed since I wrote that a year and a half ago. I have become much more of an extrovert than I would have ever imagined possible. I think that at my deepest core I am still an introvert. But, I am definitely an extroverted introvert. I don’t get nearly as drained from being around people as I used to and in fact these days if I go too long without human interaction it drives me crazy.
And these days I’m more deeply grateful than ever for the people in my life who…
help me see and understand things about myself I can’t see for myself
hold me accountable
remind me who I am, what I believe, and what I’m all about
bring me back down to earth when I’m flying too high
help me up when I’m in the valleys
know just the right thing to say, just the right thing to do
help life make sense when it gets cloudy.
You can check out the rest of the post here.
And if you don’t have at least one person in your life like that…find one! Community is great and not to be undervalued, but one on one relationships where you get to know another human being deeply and be known deeply is something I think we’ve forgotten the value of…or maybe we run from because it can be messy, scary, and uncomfortable…or maybe we just don’t make time for it.