Why Not Now: Repairing My Relationship with Friends - Tuesday
Galatians 6:2
Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. (NIV)
If I was baking a Key lime pie (my personal favorite), there would be some essential ingredients that I’d need. Some graham crackers for the crust, butter and sugar, milk and cream to whip up, and of course, Key limes. A little of this and that, and voila! A pie worth eating.
If I’m going to learn how to be a good friend, and cultivate deep relationships, there are some essential ingredients to that too. Every close friendship must have some key things to strengthen and sustain it into a friendship worth having. The first two are this: trust and vulnerability. The fact is, you can’t have trust without vulnerability and you can’t have vulnerability without trust. Every real friendship NEEDS those things, but they are two of the ingredients we are quick to leave out…because they’re hard, and they come with risk.
Personally, this was a difficult thing for me to learn and overcome. A few years ago I was sitting in a counselor’s office, feeling lonely and broken. I was clutching to control and putting walls up with the people closest to me. In an effort to protect myself from betrayal, rejection, or pain, I could easily close myself off and become highly individualistic, trusting no one with my deepest hopes, fears, thoughts, and tears.
My counselor helped me understand that choosing to trust people means giving them the ability to hurt me and disappoint me. This seems counterintuitive, right? It requires a vulnerability that is uncomfortable and risky. But what lies on the other side of trust and vulnerability is depth, the kind that you can’t fabricate or fake. It is a sense of being truly known and truly loved, and that’s where real transformation can happen. It doesn’t mean we will never get hurt– to be sure, even our best friends will sometimes hurt us– but it does mean that we cultivate a relationship that is ripe for healing and forgiveness too.
We often let our personal fears or worry of “being a burden” keep us from trust and vulnerability with our friends. But that’s what friendship IS– carrying one another’s burdens and lifting the load by walking together.
Tuesday’s Reflection
Jesus is the only friend we have who will truly never hurt us. He can be trusted in every way with our most vulnerable stuff, and shows us how we can learn to trust each other too. Listen to this song today to be reminded of that truth.
