Monday, November 11, 2013

A Friend Like This

We've had our first day in New York and it's been a blast,but I'm exhausted! I pretty much spent the last twelve hours walking around alternating between having my mouth hanging open and giddy little jumps and skips as I pulled Nathan around the city.

We are warm and snug in our cute little UWS apartment...that's upper west-side for you non-initiated ;-) Hopefully I'll write a post tomorrow about our adventures but for now enjoy this little bit I wrote on the airplane on my way out to Princeton. Now it seems a little sappy, I'm not in a sentimental mood very often, but that doesn't make it untrue:

This weekend I get to go see my friend Liz. Liz and I lived together in college and were also in small group together. She and her husband are now living and going to school at Princeton Theological Seminary (smarty pants). My heart has been so excited to get to see her. She is one of those people that just make you feel loved. We don’t get to see each other much, or even talk all that often, have you ever had one of those friendships where none of that really matters? I smile to myself just thinking about seeing her and getting one of her back-breaking hugs. She is kind, compassionate, goofy, warm, honest about both you and herself, and she loves Jesus. Maybe she’s not like this with everyone, but I really value that in our relationship there has never been any sense of competition. That is sadly a very rare find in friendships between women. We are happy for each other when good things happen, and sad when they don’t. We can encourage each other’s marriages and are lucky enough to be friends with each other’s husbands.

I don’t mean to make her sound perfect, she’s not, but that’s what grace is for. And the funny thing is… it’s not like either of us would call each other “best friends.” “Dear friends,” sure. “Beloved friend,” of course. That’s not the point. The point is that these types of relationships are rare and I know that I’m lucky to have more than one in my life. I hope that everybody has a friend like Liz. I hope that I can be a friend to others like Liz. 

There was an awesome article about comparison which made the rounds the other day. If you haven’t read it yet, definitely food for thought. I want to be a safe place, a truthful place, a place where there is not a hint of competition (I’m especially bad at this), and a place where I can eat lots of macaroni and cheese and watch White Christmas, because that is the final thing that makes Liz so great! 

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