friendship

This weekend I have four women coming in town who have always been friends despite the crazy years, the bad years, the sad and broken times, the happy times... and all the madness in between. So I've been thinking about friends. And I am missing my best friend tonight while he's away on business. (My beloved and my friend - does it get better than that?)

While searching for the reference for the verse "a man that has friends must show himself friendly" (come on, Bible scholars, help a girl out here)... I was struck by the number of times "friend" is mentioned in Job.

Job, with so many mentions of friendship; so many references to being hurt by his friends in times of deepest suffering; and the best part saved for last - Job prayed for his friends even as he was under the heavy hand of the providence of God.

In moving to a new town and starting over it has been tempting to say "Nope, not going to do it again, not going to start over and be honest and be available and share my messy life with anyone else because I've already done that and it takes too much time and energy to devote to new friendships." (By the way I did make it clear at the beginning of this blog that this would not always be "pretty" stuff, but always honest!) I even had that very discussion with a girlfriend back in Newport News!

But that is such a pathetic way to live. I want to be a true friend, not hiding in my ivory castle out of laziness or pride. I also don't want to be a Job-friend who drags down the faith of friends who are suffering. Wouldn't it have been awesome for Job to have just one friend who said "look, man, the sovereignty of God really sucks sometimes because we don't understand it completely. But God is really good and you've got to hold on to Him, no matter how much it hurts right now."

I guess the appropriate way to end this post would be with a nice fade out of Michael W. Smith's "Friends" but I really am glad to be over the nausea stage of pregnancy and don't want to bring it back in full force. ;-)

So let's just end with the beautiful knowledge that we have a Friend who sticks closer than a brother. And I hope to have some great pics to upload this weekend after adventures with the aforementioned ladies!