Make New Friends but keep the old….
Originally published at Perches in the Soul. You can comment here or there.
The sermon on Sunday was on good friends.
The kind of friends who you can show up dripping wet on their door step after the worst day and they will let you in, let you cry a bit, tell you to clear off the laundry from the sofa and rest or hand you a crying baby and to get busy (which ever seems the right reaction). The kind who tell you the truth both good and bad. And the kind of friends that point you to Christ and speak wisdom into your life.
I am blessed young woman. Because at quick count I can count about 10 friends like that in my life.
Then the sermon went on to making your life where you are, finding those friends where you are and locally because thats how the local church was. The elder argued that we cant live elsewhere. We have to live here and now.
I shifted uncomfortably. I have tried very, very hard to build roots like that here. But frankly they just have not dug deep. I go to things post-call, I go to things when I am so sleepy I can’t stay awake, I am in a small group, I go to social events, I go to church and I have done these things for a year an half but the people who are the friends that keep me sane are not here.
One out the 10 are local and they followed me here from NC. You may ask how I make this work. How I deal with my best friends being far way? How I keep myself accountable? How I keep myself sane? Well when you grew up all over the US and plan on living all over the world…you learn fast.
I felt guilty about this and then I just realized you know this is a season of my life. God knows I have tried and he seems to have brought people into my life for the right seasons. I have faith he has done the same here.
Maybe its not the 15 people in my small group, maybe its the 6 amazing young women in my residency program who I spend consistent time with. Maybe its the children who steal my heart, maybe its the preparation for having my friends a continent a way.
Here’s the truth. I am a little bit more of a Paul/Priscilla kind of figure than a Lydia or Mary/Martha. Jesus have multiple friends in different cities. I am a nomad by birth and by calling.
So make new friends, invest in where you are, yes. But keep the old.