What Friendship Looks Like

"Kindred spirits are not so scarce as I used to think. It's splendid to find out there are so many of them in the world.” ― L.M. Montgomery

     Friendship is integral to our lives, I would even say to our survival. We were created to live in community, and from a very young age we are all searching for ours. We long to find where we fit in this world, and who we fit with. We are always on the search for our tribe, squad, circle, community, clique, chosen family, etc.; whatever you call it, you are looking for it. Those people that see and experience the real, authentic you, and in response to the real you they surround, support, and choose you and you do the same for them in return. Friendship is not easy; it takes work, it's messy because humans are messy, and sometimes friendship hurts, but real and true friendship is always worth it.

     Some people are blessed enough to have their forever friend group from childhood, and that's amazing, but I would dare to venture that most of us do have that experience. I didn't meet my best friend until after I had graduated high school and moved away from my home town, and even then we weren't even friends right away, let alone best friends. Our friendship took time, it took intentional effort, and we can both tell you it hasn't been easy. We've worked at because we love each other and because the other person is worth it and honestly, because I believe that Jesus gave us each other and when Jesus gives you something or someone you keep them, and you treasure them. One of my other dearest friends entered the picture a couple years later and again we didn't start off as friends, it took time and it took work. What I'm trying to say here is that if you don't feel like you've found your people yet, it's okay. Finding your people takes time and you won't find them all at once. 

     Another thing we spend our whole lives trying to figure out is how to be a good friend, a friend worth keeping around. This is really what I want to talk about, what sparked the idea for this post in the first place. We are all different people, therefore we all have a different idea of what a friend should look like based upon our own personal needs and experiences. Some of us think friendship means giving and receiving affirmation for every little thing (hey ya'll), for some it's giving and receiving gifts, it can be traveling together, weekly hang out sessions, shopping, going on adventures, daily check ins, and on and on. The ways friendship can and should be expressed are endless. As I said before friendship takes work and sacrifice, much like marriage does, but sometimes, especially as adults, we spend so much time trying to do something to prove that we are a good friend that we miss the mark on really being one. Growing up I always heard my dad say, "Job had the best friends in the world until they opened their mouths," and he's right. I encourage you to go read the story of Job, but as a super quick refresher, Job lost literally everything and was devastated. Job's friends showed up and sat with him in his devastation, and that took some serious effort. However, they couldn't handle it and pretty soon they were talking, but they weren't being helpful. Seriously, read the book of Job, the minute they started talking and trying to fix things they made everything worse. 

     I'm not saying we should never try and speak to our friends or help them fix a situation or give them advice and encouragement, but sometimes we're so focused on the need to say the right thing, do the right thing, and be the right kind of friend that we miss the simplest and maybe the most important tenant of friendship, and that's simply being there for someone. No words, no fixing, no advice; just being. I would not at all say that I am exaggerating to tell you that this school year has been traumatic for my students. Let me tell you, they have been through some stuff this year, terrible and downright sucky stuff that no one can make better. One of my students in particular has unfortunately had a devastating event occur to his family. His year has sucked and there's no way around it. We've cried in the hallway, on the playground, in the cafeteria, and basically anywhere in a school building there is to cry. I won't tell him it's okay, because it's not, or that it will get better, because it might not, but dang it I will bawl my eyes out in every room of that building if that's what he needs, but it's not about me. One of the things that he had been struggling with is that his friends, and let me tell you this kid has some of the best humans I have ever met as his friends, didn't know what had happened. They didn't know and so he felt like he had to act like everything was okay so he wouldn't hurt his friends with his hurt, sound familiar? We do it all of the time. I'm going to tell you the same thing I told him, that hurt you're carrying around in secret, YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO CARRY IT AROUND IN SECRET! Sure, you don't need to broadcast it to everyone you know or even everyone you like, but let your friends in on your burden. That is literally what God gave us friends for! We had that conversation early in the morning and that afternoon he came to me and wanted to tell his friends, but he needed help doing it, and ya'll it's okay to need help telling your friends things. He agreed to give up his recess and so did his friends. I grabbed them from class and the four of us made use of the counselor's office and we had what might possibly the most difficult conversation these elementary aged boys had ever had, but then again maybe not. Either way, we still had an extremely devastating and heart breaking conversation that no one, let alone a group of children should be having. When they were told what had been going on they didn't say anything, they didn't try to make him feel better, or fix anything. Instead they all leaned into each other to form a giant boy blob and they cried. The three of them held each other and cried, not just crying, these kids clung to each other and they wept. I don't remember how long they sat there, but it was a while. They just sat there together in his grief with him. They were just there, and that was exactly what needed to be done in that moment, and that's what they have been doing for him ever since. Every day they just show up and are there.

     That day those boys broke my heart, but they also made me more proud than I've ever been. In a devastating situation they displayed the purest, truest, and simplest form of friendship. Sometimes I try so hard to do something or be something that I forget that the best thing I can do for my friends is just be there. They don't always need my words or my actions, oftentimes they just need my presence. I don't know where life will take those boys as they grow up, but I hope that they are fortunate enough to always be part of each other's lives. I hope that as they grow they keep practicing that kind of friendship and I hope that when I'm tempted to prove my friendship I take a breath and remember that the best example I've ever had of what friendship is supposed to be came from three elementary students, and I hope that I always follow their example. Friends, go on adventures with your people, give them gifts, write them letters of encouragement, and give them advice; but never underestimate the power of praying for them and just sitting with them in their mess, even if you aren't physically with each other you can still sit together. The friendships that last are the ones that when the adventures and events are done there's just people who love each other sitting together in whatever life brings them.