weeklythoughtexchange

Four weeks of blogging on friendship cannot encapsulate the many nuances of this topic: the types, styles and dynamics. Reflecting upon the many people I have called friends through the years brings a smile (and some tears) to my face. My friendships have crossed cultures, world views and generations. They have opened my eyes to the value of vulnerability.

Leaving my home state and subsequently, my comfort zone, to settle in another left me wondering if I could possibly establish community where I had no prior connections or history. Upon moving into our new neighborhood, my family and I did the following:

• Found a church: it wasn’t until we connected with the family of God that I really began to feel at home. My husband insisted we get involved with the church right away and soon fresh friendships were forming.
• Waved to our neighbors: there is something about waving and smiling to the people that pass by every day on walks or drives that builds connections which lead to conversations.
• Bread and tea: at Christmas I made bread for our neighbors that we delivered in person. Doors and hearts always open to freshly baked bread. In the months and chats that followed I put Tea at Two on my social calendar, as well as a Hobby Night, and now a few of my neighbors come over regularly to chat, laugh, pray and support one another.

The rewards of friendship are countless. There’s the intrigue that comes with meeting lovely people in unexpected ways and listening to their profound life stories; there’s the joy and love that come from building new connections and being embraced by folks you never knew existed a handful of years ago; and there’s the security that comes from not being invisible in your own community. But the risks are also real.

I have had my share of hurt in friendship- some being quite fresh. To have friends, one must be vulnerable and real and that provides ample opportunity for rejection and betrayal. Friends know your history, your weaknesses, your hopes and dreams; you assume they are a safe place. But friends are also human and susceptible to misunderstandings, offenses, jealousies, the comparison game, and a myriad of other weaknesses that destroy relationships. How does one navigate these risks?

As I conclude my friendship series, I wish I could provide a succinct answer. Unfortunately, I’m no friendship expert. All I know is that in a world of chaos and evil I am thankful for the people I call friends. I am blessed by their life experience, their kindness and their availability. I am inspired by them to be a good friend and a true friend- someone that people depend upon. But because I am just as human as the next soul, I know I can’t be a friend without Jesus. I have to lean into Him for the wisdom and guidance needed to multiply the joy and process the sorrow of friendship.

How do you navigate the risks and rewards of friendships?

Having been raised in Hawaii long distance friendships were normal for me and correspondence became a way of life. My pen pals ranged in age from 80 to 5, some I had chatted with in person and some I had never met before, some were in other countries and some were just states away. I learned about friendship cultivation through these letters.

• Share the details. The friendships that flourished were the ones where our letters were filled with every day tidbits, decorated with stickers and doodling, and even had jokes going back and forth. We moved past the mundane facts and chatted in pen as if we were in person.
• Share my heart. It takes effort to open up long distance but the sharing of struggles and emotions crosses the miles. Friendships do not deepen without vulnerability.
• Take the time. I really tried to make my correspondence a weekly priority and had set days when I replied to my letters in the order they came. I wrote to my elderly penpals weekly, regardless if they had written back. Sometimes I would surprise my friends with little gifts in their letters.

With the advancement of technology, letter writing is a fading practice; even emails are becoming obsolete thanks to text messaging, Facebook messenger, Marco Polo, Snapchat, Instagram and all the other social media sites that connect people. In my opinion though, social media requires us to work even harder to cultivate friendship.

As we inform the masses of our life happenings we lose the personal closeness that comes with sitting down to write to ONE person or picking up the phone and having a chat with ONE person (something that I’m terrible at initiating since I have a phobia of phone calls. LOL!) The tidbits I learned so long ago about cultivating friendships across the miles may have been learned through letter writing but are still relevant in this social media driven world. We still need to share details, share our hearts and take time to be a good friend.

What is your preferred method for cultivating long distance friendships?

Selflessness is at the heart of friendship but there is also value in simply being yourself. I genuinely struggled with this as I exited the blissful oblivion of childhood and became more self-aware. Through my childhood and teenage years I experienced significant rejection from my peers which resulted in the majority of my friendships being with those older and younger than myself. I longed for social circle of peers but God opened my eyes to the richness of friends in stages of life that differed from mine.

My husband was the first peer who sought me out for who I was (so of course i married him! lol!). He invested great effort in learning about me, valuing my thoughts and ideas, and delighting in who I am as an individual. It took me a while to believe that someone as amazing as him would enjoy my company (and sometimes I still can’t believe it) but through his cultivation I discovered a confidence in friendship I had never before experienced. Thus began a new and exciting season of friendship for me.

Since our marriage I have developed a handful of intimate friendships that have grown and challenged me. These women offer support in the hard times, celebrate the victories and offer accountability in weakness. Our friendship isn’t without ruffled feathers and emotional outbursts but we have learned to trust one another’s hearts. And I am recognizing that when I am honestly me we grow even closer because they can be honestly them. There is humility and freedom in being yourself, isn’t there?

In a nutshell, friendship begins with me being me. This doesn’t mean I can glory in self-absorption or expect everyone to cater to my whims and fancies; rather, it means I am not ashamed of my strengths; I’m honest about my weaknesses; I don’t apologize for my convictions; and I celebrate my interests. In turn, I encourage my friends to do the same.

What holds you back in friendship?

In the weeks ahead I hope to share about cultivating long distance friendships and beginning new friendships in new communities. (I’ll be blogging until Baby comes)

Is it already a new month? Wow! And a new month means a new theme of blogs. I would like to take time to focus on friendship. Friendship is vital for a socially fulfilled life and it refines us as we strive to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. Without friends, we would have fewer opportunities to practice selflessness.

Background: over the past two years I have experienced friendship in fresh ways. I went through a decently traumatic ending to a friendship, made new friendships and cultivated continuing ones. At the same time, my oldest two children entered the stage of desiring friendships of their one and observing them make their entrance into the social community has been fascinating for me.

Looking ahead: I have come to recognize that while I am the common denominator in all of my friendships I am still only responsible for my own words, actions and attitudes. I can not force others to see things my way, respond the way I want them to or live their lives according to my value system. I am not responsible for who they are as individuals. This is simultaneously freeing and challenging concept for me, and I hope to explore it in more detail in this month’s blog series.

I welcome your thoughts, reflections and personal experiences along the way.

The beauty of the gospel is that it reveals the evil within us, declares our need for a savior and points us to Him. This month and this journey through the Matthew, Mark, Luke and John have found me pondering the impact of the gospel in my daily life more than I ever have before.

Yesterday I had an invigorating discussion with my gentle neighbor regarding our sinful state and just how profound it is to know that the Creator of the Universe put such thought and sacrifice into providing a way for us to be reconciled to and have a relationship with Him, even before we even desired such restoration! And I am thankful for this!

You see, despite having repented of my sins and embracing Jesus as my Lord and Savior, I continue to sin each and every day. This week has been particularly hard. Last night I was in tears over the impatience in my heart towards my children. I love them beyond description and yet even that great love does not prevent me from sinning against them. And that prompted me to ponder the love of Jesus. It was His great love for me that moved Him to endure a brutal death before I showed any sign of repentance. It’s humbling. It’s freeing. It’s beautiful.

March is drawing to a close and so is this theme of blogs. I pray that I will continue to bring the gospel into all that I think, say and do, that my gratitude for Christ’s sacrifice will prompt me to be bold in sharing the truth with others and that I will humbly show grace and forgiveness every day just as they have been shown to me.

How will the gospel impact you today?

Does fear define you? What are your top five fears: fear of failure, fear of disappointment, fear of disapproval, fear of…?

My husband and I were chatting about what prevents us from sharing the truth of the gospel with our friends. Oftentimes it is the fear of losing the friendship that keeps our mouths shut. Dare I say this is a valid fear? After all, isn’t religion one of this topics you don’t discuss at a dinner party? People rarely jump at the chance to talk about their sins, their eternal destination or their standing before the Almighty God. It is human nature to put God in a box and when someone dares to open that box it is rarely met with applause.

However valid our fear may be of sharing the gospel does it condone our silence? Only if we do not genuinely believe in Jesus; only if He is NOT God; only if He did not actually live, die and resurrect; only if our sins do not need to be forgiven; only if Jesus is not worth living (and dying) for; only if today matters more than eternity; only if our temporary comfort is of more pertinence than God’s glory.

Trust me, I am no pro at sharing the gospel with everyone I meet. My prayer is that as I grow in my love for Jesus so will my love grow for my neighbors and that love will compel me to share the hope that is within me.

‘To amaze: fill with astonishment; astound, take someone’s breath away…’

As we prepare to step into your second year of life and bid babyhood an official farewell, amazement provides the best description for my first year with you.  The first birthdays of all of your siblings have brought me to tears with how fast they passed, but yours seems to have gone faster than all the rest. I can vividly remember the details of your birth and ask myself, “Has it already been one year? So long and yet so brief!”

Your birth amazed me! Yours was our first home birth and because of that an aura of warmth and peace surrounds its memory. Each time we walk in our neighborhood I recall the labor walk to encourage contractions; the little patch of carpet in our room where you made your grand entrance floods my heart with joy and I don’t even mind that blood stain on the bed where I eased into it with you fresh in my arms. Such a journey of pain, power, and priceless life!

Your development amazes me! First it was your rapid growth – at 2 weeks old you were nearly the size of a 6-week old and at your 8-week wellness check the doctor could only shake her head in astonishment at how large you were. You rapidly outgrew every outfit we had and by the time you were 10-months you were wearing 18-month clothing. You crawled faster, pulled up faster and acquired teeth faster than everyone else in addition to growing so fast. Now it is your cognitive development that amazes me. The way you already drive cars with your thumb and forefinger like your big brother does and make the car sounds as you drive; the way you make eye contact, grunt, and attempt syllables to communicate with us; the deliberate way in which you participate in your siblings activities and look at books with them all indicate a very intelligent individual.

Your features amaze me! Your soft, wispy hair that can’t make up its mind about being dark or light brown begs to be caressed. The rolls on your arms and legs and the way your little toes grip the carpet when you stand up are irresistable on the cuteness scale. Your one-dimple smile and the way you cock your head to the side when you want to make me melt  work every time!

Your personality amazes me! The way you lay your head in my neck to snuggle when I pick you up make time pause for a breath. You can’t help but beat time with the music when your favorite songs are playing and you wave your arms when we say, “Hallelujah, He arose!” You are gentle and strong, determined and dependent. Somehow you manage to be a baby and a little boy all at once.

Your place in the family amazes me! It’s clear that at this young age you already adore your family. You have a unique relationship with each one of us, including the pets. You are fourth in the sibling ranks but that doesn’t lessen the importance of your role in our lives. Each of your siblings adores you and Poppa and Mama can’t get enough of your snuggles. Our family would be incomplete without your presence.

Happy birthday, my Son! God amazes me through you.

Gospel-living is becoming a theme in the day-to-day, not just in March’s blogs, and I am delighted with this. It is not so easy to be delighted with what brings the theme to mind, however: hardship. Not life-shattering hardship as is happening all around the world, but trials in the little things. For the most part it’s just life not going my way or the way I think would be best. Why, I do not even do things the way I think would be best!!

But this morning I read the account of the widow’s mite in the gospel according to Luke. It sums up gospel-living: hold nothing back. Jesus tells us to pick up our cross and follow Him; then He commends the widow for giving, not out of her surplus, but everything she had. This same principle carriers into how we treat those who hurt us, how we respond to injustice and how we approach difficulty in our day-to-day. It is a continual giving of our entire selves to obedience to Jesus. Why? Because that is what we as Christians claim matters most to us. Do our lives declare it? Only if we are all in (as my pastor likes to say).

For me, this applies when my energy is depleted but the demands increase or when friends hurt me or when I feel like my situation isn’t fully understood. I should respond with grace and gentleness towards people and within my own heart. It’s in how I respond to life not going my way that I live out the gospel for those around me; after all, if I had things my way from the beginning I would never have sworn allegiance to Christ in the first place. I am thankful He intervened.

When is it the hardest for you to live out the gospel?

Seeing March on the calendar reminds me that spring is on the way. Spring draws my attention to Easter and Easter brings the gospel into the forefront of my mind. Truthfully, I should live very day in light of Christ’s call and sacrifice, but I don’t. I am journeying through the gospels with a friend of mine and in some ways it feels like I am hearing Jesus’s words for the very first time. It is both convicting and refreshing. Luke chapter 12 has had a particularly lasting effect on me.

In this passage Jesus relates the parable of the wealthy man who had such abundance he decided to tear down his barns and build bigger ones. God curses him for being so confident in himself and his wealth and the man died that very night. Jesus goes on to urge His followers to not worry about such things as food and clothing for those things do not have eternal value; instead, we should center our lives on what has eternal consequences. I don’t believe Jesus is saying that it is wrong to enjoy good food, tasteful clothing, a cozy house, fun vacations or any of those things that delight us throughout the day; He is saying that they should not consume our thoughts more than He does. And that convicted me.

As I read I realized that my thoughts are generally about temporal concerns like meal preparations, clothing purchases, finances, how much time I’ve spent on my phone, or whether or not I’ve offended a friend. Again, these things aren’t inherently bad, but when I’m dwelling on them I’m not seeking the Kingdom. And if I’m pursuing Kingdom matters earthly things suddenly won’t matter so much. What does this look like in practical terms?

This is a question I’ll be pondering all month and perhaps even longer. I know that I want to talk to and about Jesus more every day; I want to obey His promptings immediately; when I begin to worry about something material I want to ask myself if it will matter when I’m seeing Jesus face-to-face. I would like to be more interested in what God is doing in the lives of others and their efforts to share the gospel with those around them.

This month’s posts will be focused on gospel-living. How do you seek to bring the gospel into your every day living? What temporal concerns tend to dominate your thoughts?

“Have you ever felt tossed back and forth, trying to please people in different worlds, searching for an anchor to hold you steady?” This is a question posed by Lara Casey in chapter 4 of her book, Make It Happen. I asked myself, “Well, have I?” My initial reaction is, “Of course not!” But then I read chapter 7 of Luke in which Jesus directly commends three people, from very different walks of life, for their faith. I realized that not only have I been tossed back and forth in search of an anchor, I still am.

How do I know this? I know this because I am easily swayed by circumstances, opinions and temporal interests and desires rather than being devoted to Who and what I know to be true. When those factors change, I change. If things are aligned correctly and are favorable to my preferences, I am pleasant to all who cross my path; but it’s a different story when I am disgruntled with my place in the world. Alternatively, if my eyes and heart remained anchored to Jesus and my pleading tears of repentance washed His feet, life would be noticeably different; it would be lush with the fruit that comes only from abiding in Him. Temporal trends would not impact how I respond to others and I would have insight into how to minister to the living beings who share the world with me.

This month of love is drawing to a close. I can’t say that I’ve aced all the tests of loving responses and serving with kindness that have come my way. In fact, my eyes have been opened to how much I can improve as I’ve been blessed with unexpected kindnesses from loved ones and strangers alike. But as a new month approaches, I plan to redouble my efforts to abide in Jesus and share the fruit that comes from an anchored life.