Day 3: Winner of the Friendship Lottery

Me and my childhood best friend

When it comes to friends, I've won the lottery. I could easily tick off name after name after name of the men and women in my life who are just straight up exceptional human beings. They come from various stages of my life, from childhood to college to adulthood. They are married, married with kids, single, divorced. Some love Jesus, some are on the fence about Jesus, and some are just straight up suspicious of him. They are thoughtful, hilarious, serious, smart, introverted, extroverted, dedicated, sacrificial, giving, and everything else in between.

There's Sandra, the unlikeliest of friends. She is proof that God has a sense of humor because she and I would probably never have chosen to be friends on our own. There's Ruth who is truly the most thoughtful person I know and has the memory of an elephant. I think I'm decent about remembering the details of people's lives, but she puts me to shame. There's Matt who is just an easy companion. Conversations come effortlessly with him. There's Kristen who is probably one of my funniest friends. Her storytelling coupled with her southern accent is pure gold. There's Laura. That girl was my saving grace in a really crazy season of life. There's Emily, my kindred spirit in so many ways, someone who can go deep intellectually and spiritually in a way that is so life-giving. And Derek, I'm not sure where I'd be without him. He's more of anchor than he'll probably ever know. 

I could go on and on, but that's just a glimpse. Sometimes I get overwhelmed when I think about the line-up of friends that I have because they are just so.freaking.amazing. Truly stunning people and I'm so honored to be their friend.

At the risk of stating the obvious, though, those friendships haven't happened by accident. If there is anything I have learned - and thankfully I learned this when I was young - friendships require effort and intentionality. I know I'm stating the obvious and I know that's no different than any other relationship, but it's easy to think that friendships are going to somehow be held together through passive means or happenstance. We get so busy and self-absorbed with our own lives as we get older - we get married, we have kids, our careers take over. And then we wonder what happened to so and so, realizing that people who were once confidants are now merely acquaintances simply because we just stopped trying to connect.

I inadvertently visited almost every friend I have living out of state this past year (and I certainly have plenty of friends in state that I visited also!). I drove down last February to South Carolina to see a friend of mine that I met through Bible Study Fellowship. I made the trek out to Missouri to visit college friends, making multiple stops in Illinois and Indiana along the way to catch an assortment of people I hadn't seen in awhile. I drove down to North Carolina to visit another college friend, stopped briefly in Winston-Salem on the way back to visit a friend I met during a post-college summer job, and then stopped again overnight in Virginia to stay with a former boss of mine from my grad school days. I drove out to DC to take my niece to an internship and reconnected with a sorority sister I hadn't seen in nine years. I flew out to San Diego here just in December to visit friends from church who recently moved out there.

Me and Hannah on the beach at Coronado Island

I don't say all that to pat myself on the back, but to say that I learned a long time ago that you have to show up in your friendships again and again and again. Because guess what? It's easy to make excuse after excuse, and it's easy to just stop trying. You have to decide at some point that people matter and that it's time to make them a priority, even if that is a select one or two friends. Now, I realize that I am single. And because of that, it affords me a lot of flexibility to just pick up and go. I don't have a husband and children to corral and coordinate. My job has great benefits that allow me time off when I want. So, yes, I'm aware of the caveats of my situation. 

But maintaining friendships doesn't always mean getting on a plane or driving 1,000 miles. Sometimes, yes, it may mean that, but more often than not, maintaining friendships means sending a text message and being curious about your friends' lives. It means asking questions. It means checking in. It means sending the occasional card. It means clearing your calendar, reaching out and asking if they want to get together for dinner. It means you keep showing up. Because as Bob Goff pointed out in his book Love Does, love is both sacrificial and present. 

So who do you need to text? Who do you need to call? Who do you need to get on a plane to go see, if the situation allows? Grand gestures are not required in order to maintain grand friendships, but grand friendships do require deliberate and sustained effort, effort that communicates "You matter to me."