Friendship
I recently wrote a Facebook post on my personal Facebook page and called out some dear people in my life. I wanted to honor them in light of the recently passed International Friendship Day. I wrote that post and was all ready to be done with the topic, but I can’t get away from it.
We live in a like, subscribe, share, friend, & unfriend world; a world where we can order nearly anything online from food to cars and, if you believe the YouTube ads, Slovakian women willing to be your wife. Most of the 200+ people I’m friends with on Facebook, are people I’ve met through church; only in a small number of cases am I friends with someone on Facebook that I’ve never met and, even then, they usually know more than 1 mutual friend. It’s easy to sit at home and do things on social media and call that friendship, but real friendship requires you to get out from behind that screen and share life with other people.
2022 has been such a learning experience thus far... A lot of my learning has revolved around the topics of friendship, relationships, and yes, even questioning my personal stance on marriage. While the jury may still be out on whether I’ll ever open my heart to pursuing marriage, to quote a lady, who’s wedding I attended a few years back, when I was talking to her about this, “It’s not out of the realm of possibility”.
Friendship on the other hand is an interesting topic and when we think of the bible we think of Jonathan and David. Jonathan was King Saul’s son and rightful heir to the throne, but with King Saul’s disobedience to God, God chose David over King Saul to rule over Israel. King Saul would become jealous of David’s anointing and try to kill him on several occasions. Where King Saul saw David through the eyes of jealousy, His son, Jonathan, saw him through the eyes of compassion; even crying when he had to send David away to spare his life. Jonathan would survive an attempt on his life by his own father, when his dad learned of this, and later die on the battlefield alongside his father when Israel went to war.
My own experience with friendship has been very limited. I had one childhood friend, Jacob; we were friends until my mom and dad separated and we moved 15 miles away; to me, it might as well have been 150 miles. Jacob had lived a few doors down from my house, but now we were in different cities and different school districts. I remember, once all our stuff was moved into the duplex, walking to the edge of the front yard, as close to the street as possible, sitting on the ground and crying. My life was never going to be the same and I would never see Jacob again.
I knew very early on in my Christian walk that Christian friendship was important. Right after God filled me with his spirit, I met Steven. Steven went to church about 20 miles away and we occasionally saw each other at work; Steven’s favorite verse, Proverbs 27:17 says, “As iron sharpens iron, so, a friend sharpens a friend”, he’d often quote it to me and remind me that we all need sharpening sometimes. In this day and age, it seems that things come at us daily that dulls our edge. So, friends are even more important.
Unfortunately, I was about to learn a lesson in friendship, and it was a hard lesson. It wasn’t until I was 34 and had been in church for 8 years and had been praying for a friend that Ernest came along. Ernest started attending our church after a divorce, and I remember being at the church and feeling that I needed a friend, while I was praying. I started running through my short list of people and God said, “What about Ernest?” I remember arguing with God and telling him I did not know him. God reminded me the words of my pastor, “If you want a friend, you must 1st be a friend to someone. You reap what you sow.” My relationship with Ernest started off awkwardly, but quickly flourished. We were 2 guys that had been hurt by our dads, but outside of that and church, we really had very little in common. He was an OTR truck driver, and I worked at a grocery store. For 4 1/2 years we became so close despite our differences, people came to associate us with one another, once even mistaking us for siblings. We brought the best out of each other, but after I left my church of 12 years, I learned that we brought the worst out of each other. He followed me to my new church, but after 6 months at our new church our relationship started to tarnish. By now Ernest was involved in a relationship with a woman and while I liked her as a person, I did not get their relationship. Over the last year of our relationship, the relationship turned toxic, at one point Ernest refused to acknowledge I existed for at least 3 months; choosing to give me the cold shoulder treatment.
The irony of it all is, that everything Ernest encouraged me to do, I’ve gone on to do. He encouraged me to take a promotion at work, and I have; he encouraged me to make friends at church, and I have more friends than I’ve had my entire life; he encouraged me to step out of my comfort zone, and I have. I would love to have him here standing at my side, cheering me on, as I pursue God’s calling on my life. I would love to see him as Christ sees him, not the broken man I found in 2013.
There’s a phrase floating around on social media that resonates with me, “Friends are family you choose”. Not all of us have tightly knit family relationships and we rely on our friendships and church family to become that for us. God has absolutely provided in that area since joining my current church in 2017.
On more than 1 occasion, in the last 5 years, has someone told me that I was their friend and it absolutely shocked me. God tends to get me involved in something before I know what’s going on, and then He tells me after it’s too late for me to turn around. LOL! My friend, Shelly, and her husband are perfect examples. They and their daughter moved from southeast Texas to the southwestern DFW area and joined our church, 6 months after I did. Shelly became our church’s administrative assistant. I received permission from my pastor to have access to the church, because I wanted to pray there; Shelly got a key copied and brought it to me. I remember just wanting her to be comfortable with me being there in the church when she was working, I never planned or expected us to become friends. It was Shelly that was the spark that got me connected with Brian (aka Pete), who became a very close friend for a season in my life. I’ve known Shelly and her family for about 4 1/3 years, and it wasn’t until this past January, that Shelly told me that she considered me her friend. I became uncomfortable and I remember asking her, is that even possible (for us to be friends)? She told me it was. I then asked, is that even okay (for us to be friends)? She said, yes.
The funny thing is when I was in school, I preferred hanging around the girls versus the guys. In my last year in junior high, a friend invited me to her birthday party, I went because I thought she was cute, and she’d give me the time of day where most of my peers did not. But how did I get here? I’ve not been perfect, and I've made mistakes; I have hurt women and been hurt by women. I have not always appreciated women for who they are and/or their contributions; especially as Christians and contributors in the church. The recent revelation that a few ladies in my church (Shelly included), that I’ve come to appreciate their ministries and/or their female perspectives of life, faith, and our Christian walk has been a shift in perspective. When I started going to church in 2005, I went to a church that taught some things; I misinterpreted those teachings and took myself to a place where I felt if I looked at a woman wrong, God would kill me. I withdrew into my shy, insecure self, where giving a complement to a woman became hard to do and I feared it to be misinterpreted; it became easier to say nothing than to encourage. I know there are a lot of messages in our world directed at women and young girls and if my little compliment can help to brighten your day, then I want to give it.
Speaking of one of those female perspectives, on a recent Wednesday night one of my favorite female teachers spoke on the topic of spiritual growth from the perspective of love and sitting at the table, breaking bread, and fellowshipping. Many of us have heard or been guilty of using Hebrews 10:25 to tell people they need to be in church; even I can be counted amongst the guilty. To my female perspective's point, we need community, absolutely, but growth doesn't come through community, it comes through intimate fellowship. It’s those times of sitting down with Brian at our favorite brunch place or those chats, as Shelly calls them, or counseling sessions, as I halfway jokingly call them; it’s going and grabbing coffee or inviting someone into your home. Because immediately after Peter’s big day of Pentecost message in Acts 2, the bible tells us, “And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.” (Acts 2:42 KJV) We as a society have gotten away from gathering at the dinner table as a family, but as was taught that Wednesday, it’s at the table we experience growth. When was the last time we sat at the table without any devices nearby and connected? If you’ve tried it, you might have learned to make more meaningful connections with those you love. If it applies in the natural, it applies in the spiritual; we grow through intimate connection, transparency, acceptance, and bearing one another’s burdens.
I am grateful to God for each one of my friends, my church family, and those God continues to surround me with to help me walk down the paths He has set before me.
“Some people come into our lives and quickly go. Some stay for a while and leave footprints in our Hearts and we are never ever the same.” - Rev. Lee Stoneking
In memory of Tanya Ritz