It’s been cold here in the Midwest. I mean really cold – like 8 inches of snow, single digit temps, freeze your snot kind of cold. On days like these I am thankful for friends who are prone to cabin-fever. Friends like the one I walked with yesterday. This friend introduced me to mall walking, and yes, I know what you’re thinking, I’m much too young to mall walk, but really, can you find a better climate-controlled free track that always ends up at Target? So I think I’ve stumbled onto a great thing, courtesy of this friend of mine.
I meet my friend outside of Panera and we walk at a good clip, passing cute old couples walking hand-in-hand, a few pairs of ladies chatting about this or that, the occasional walker doing some type of odd arm-flailing exercises. We walk and talk about life, marriage, God, ministries, and sports. This friend of mine is married and has a college age daughter, so she is a couple of life stages ahead of me. We’ve been friends for over 20 years – in fact I have memories of her accompanying me on a first grade field trip to St. Louis while she was maybe six months pregnant (what a trouper!). She taught me how to play basketball, helped me pack for summer camp, and was always up for something fun.
After spending time together yesterday I found myself thinking about all the women God has put in my life who have loved me, taught me, walked with me, and cried with me. The godly women who have allowed me a front-row seat to their life as they set their course with a young marriage, as they wrestle (mostly gracefully) with the delights and demands of newborns and toddlers, as they deliberate over the challenges of where to send their kids to school and how to raise teenagers. I have watched godly friends ride the highs and lows of marriage and ministry life through various seasons, and I have watched women do their best to care for elderly parents with failing health. I am thankful for these women, for those who have gone before me, for those who walk beside me, and for those who follow behind me.
It is a good thing to have friends who are older and more mature than you. Friends who have weathered difficult seasons of life and can coach you along your own path. I think of these women as having gone before me – they’ve already trail blazed through the early phases of marriage, through the season of growing your family, some have even tasted loss and they provide comfort and wisdom in a way that communicates deeply to me in my current phase of life. I am thankful for these women, these friends.
There are also friends who walk beside you in life. These women may be your contemporaries in age or life stage, or they may just be friends that God has dropped in your life to provide that day to day or week to week companion. The friendly voice on the other end of the line, the one who meets you for coffee or lunch or mall walking. These are the friends with whom you share the trenches of figuring out marriage, how to balance the demands of work and family, or how to potty train a toddler. I have a friend who is walking with me through the trenches of grief and healing. She is a blend of a before/beside friend as she experienced a very similar loss almost exactly two years before we lost the boys. She has already walked the path of devastating loss, but has also tasted the sweetness of God’s sustaining grace for the journey; yet she still walks beside me as I think you never really get over the loss of a child.
My life has been enriched with younger friends, those whom I think of as following behind. I served in youth ministry for ten years and got to meet and teach and have fun with many junior high and high school aged kids. I had a small group of girls at my church for five years and treasured the time I had with them delving into the Word, planning parties, playing Settlers of Catan. There is a little posse of young girls at the church who are faithful to greet me with a hug every Sunday morning. There have been families with little kids that have become like nieces and nephews to me. Kids I love to spend time with, whether it’s picking them up from school or having them for dinner, or playing in the snow. I hope and pray that my life and my walk with God influences them, that I communicate to them through words and actions that God loves them and that He is real. Maybe these young people will walk through seasons of grief and remember my husband and me and how we sought the God of all comfort who used the church as an instrument of healing. Maybe they will remember that worship in grief and in tears is possibly the most healing thing that can be done.
In the midst of a very difficult life season I have prayed repeatedly for God to help and for Him to comfort and to be near. As I was thinking about what I would write for this post it came to mind that God answered that prayer in a surprising way. He answered it through these women, these friends. He sat with me and listened to my heartbreak through Janiece and Heather and Adrianne. He hugged me with the warm bear-hug of Karen. He cried with me through the tears of Melissa. He comforted me with the letters of Kathy and Kristin and Helen, encouraged me with the words of DeeDee. He was present with me through the presence of Kristen. He showed grace through the patience and kindness of our families. He fed me with the meals crafted by so many loving people at our church.
Let us all remember the friends who God gives to bless us and to draw us to Him. Let us be the type of friend who blesses and draws others to Him. And let us say with joyful hearts:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves have been comforted by God.
1 Corinthians 1:3-4