Faithful are the Wounds of a BFF

This year, like the last few, has passed with many changes and adjustments in my friendships. My personality type always comes out as "loyal friend" on those quizzes; close relationships and one-on-one time are a fountain of life to me. So when I have to make adjustments in the amount of quality time I have with my girlfriends, my heart feels anywhere from quite sad to deeply grieved. I absolutely know that life happens - I get pregnant, I have a newborn, my friend gets pregnant, my friend starts working again, I spend all week going to the chiropractor and allergy doctor, my friend moves away, I move, my friend moves, my kids get sick and then my friend's kids get sick, I go out of town, and then it's mid-November and that is that. I am learning to give more and more grace and flexibility, just as the same is given to me in great measure. And I am learning to find the joy in a four-and-a-half minute phone conversation (abruptly ended by a screaming child and "I've got to go" click), or a facebook post during naptime, or a long voicemail while chugging a sandwich, or saying an inside joke even though no one else gets it, or even just thinking about a friend during their favorite time of year...  whatever it takes to make little connections here and there, keeping the lifeline open.

I was recently asking the Lord about the status of my heart, and my exhaustion level with trying to maintain said lifelines in the face of life (and in particular life with small children). He said, "Learn friendship by being friends with me... Spend your mind on me, not others -- just let go those worries and complications and I will teach you how to be a friend. I will give you what you need."

And later He said to me, "Friends and seasons expand and recede, but my love is the one true constant. Remain in my love. Stay close to me. I am your constant."

I have turned to those pages in my journal many times, leaning into Him, and it has brought me great perspective, clarity, freedom and comfort. I hope others may realize the same. This may not be His word to you during your particular season, but He knew it was just what I needed.

I came across a timely book in my Christmas-list searching by Dr. George Grant and his wife Karen. Best Friends: The Ordinary Relationships of Extraordinary People is a compilation of stories of influential people throughout history and a close relationship that formed or greatly impacted their life and calling. George Whitefield and Benjamin Franklin; Elizabeth and John Bunyan; Monica and Augustine, and others' stories are bookended by scores of quotes about friendship throughout the ages. It's a great read... I would recommend it to any history buff or sentimentalist. I'll end with some of my favorite quotes:

No man is the whole of himself. His friends are the rest of him.    -George Whitefield

To be capable of steady friendship or lasting love, are the two greatest proofs, not only of goodness of heart, but of strength of mind.    -William Hazlitt

Though love be deeper, yet friendship is more wide.   -Arthur Quiller-Couch

A true friend is a pearl

Your deepest needs

And so spares you the shame

Of giving your heart

And its hidden desires a name.

    -A.A. Milne

A friend hears the song of the heart and sings it when memory fails.   -Martin Luther

Don't worry about knowing people, just make yourself worth knowing.   -Theodore Roosevelt

A person who has a many of friends either has a lot of money or is a good listener.    -H.L. Mencken

Be courteous to all, but intimate with a few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence. True friendship is a plant of slow growth, and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation. -George Washington

A man, sir, should keep his friendships in constant repair.   -Samuel Johnson

We must all measure ourselves by our friendships -- apart from the Scriptures, there is no surer measure to be had in this poor fallen world.   -Francis Schaeffer

A true friend unbosoms freely, advises justly, assists readily, adventures boldly, takes all patiently, defends courageously, and continues a friend unchangeably.   -William Penn