That Kind of Friend

Well, here I am!

Don't ask me the reason for the long period of silence...I have no answer. Well, that's not entirely true. Lack of discipline...the busy-ness of life...insecurity...no interesting ideas...lack of concentration...this sort of scattered feeling in my brain...an unfamiliar distractibility...I guess the list could go on and on. Perhaps it's just better to focus on the fact that I am here, and hopefully, so are you.

That word...friend...what does it really mean in these modern days?  Who are the people that I call friend? How did we come to this place of friendship? What defines the relationship?  What sustains the relationship? Why do some fade with the passing of time and others grow deeper...more immovable? What kind of friend am I? 

I've been thinking about friendship. I guess I fell down this contemplative rabbit hole because reality came framming on Life's Door for some of my friends. Framming...it's a south Georgia word for the most ferocious and urgent sort of knocking. The kind of knocking that you are loathe to answer, but have to...because there is no other choice.  I guess this is where we need to issue the warning that we are fixing to get deep with this essay. This isn't a piece of summer fluff reading.

What kind of friend do you need when your mama lives two hours away and with each moment, dementia claims a little more of her...and you're also dealing with the decline of your relocated parents-in-law? What kind of friend do you need when the strings holding your dysfunctional marriage together begin to fray? What kind of friend do you need when the sudden responsibility and burden (readily accepted with NO hesitation) of raising your grandchildren is thrust upon you? What kind of friend do you need when your spirit is so dry you can hear it disintegrating...you have given freely until there is no more to give but people are still asking?  What kind of friend do you need when the biopsy results are out of the blue...no known family history...malignant?  What kind of friend do you need when you need when you sit graveside of the one who stole your heart as a young girl and still made you catch your breath thirty, forty, fifty years later? What kind of friend do you need when everything around you seems to be on fire and raging...no relief in sight?  In these moments when reality is no longer fully recognizable for my friends, what kind of friend do they need?

I think if you were to examine a healthy friendship, you would find it to be a symbiotic relationship. Both parties involved gain benefit from the association. Friendships are often born out of shared experiences, similar interests, and common values. The strong ones have a natural flow of give and take based on seasons of life and circumstances. Trust is a foundational element. Without it, all the other lovely things about a friendship fail to matter. What are all the other lovely things? Kindness, compassion, generosity, thoughtfulness, helpfulness, loyalty, humility, grace, patience, joy...humor. This is hardly an original thought. Paul talks about it in Chapter 5 of his letter to the Galatians...the fruit of the spirit. Some of you sang a FUN song about it during VBS/church camp/Sunday school years. These are the qualities that should mark the life of a believer. The fruit of THE spirit...the Holy Spirit...the spirit of Christ that should be alive and well inside the soul of his children. Who else displayed the actions of a friend better than Jesus? Granted, he was PERFECT...we aren't...I am not. I ABSOLUTELY am not. I have never been named anything close to a theologian or biblical scholar, but I honestly believe we're talking about the pattern of your life. Is the pattern of your life marked more consistently by the spiritual fruit? Removing the moments when your flesh takes the lead, what remains? Creating a pattern marked by kindness and generosity feels far more manageable. Placing focus on a life pattern allows us the room to make the mistakes...because will make them...and allowing space for the consequences and accountability that should compel us not to repeat them.

The simple answer to what kind of friend each of my storm tossed friends need is Jesus. Going deeper, they need flesh and blood friends who will BE like Jesus. They need all of those lovely things Paul talks about in Galatians because that's where all of those lovely things start. And no...Paul didn't specifically name humor in his list of spiritual fruit, but I promise you this, Jesus had a sense of humor. He walked around with twelve completely human men...and one of them betrayed him in a way most of us will NEVER experience. Trust me, there was humor!! My friends need to see the tangible actions of love, compassion, loyalty, grace, and joy. 

I want to be THAT kind of friend.