Friendship and Ugly Crying

“Good friendships are like breakfast. You think you’re too busy to eat breakfast, but then you find yourself exhausted and cranky halfway through the day, and discover that your attempt to save time totally backfired.”

-Bittersweet by Shauna Niequist

I have the greatest friends. Seriously.

But, that hasn’t always been the case. In fact, I remember a very distinct moment on my birthday only a few years ago when I looked at Micah and pathetically cried, “I have no friends!” And it wasn’t a graceful crying. It was the kind where your face gets really red and you look hideous. Girls, you know what I’m talking about. We were newly married, and Micah was dumbfounded.

I also remember many frighteningly similar moments my freshmen year of college. Sitting in my dorm room at the University of Texas crying because I was hundreds of miles away from my closest friends from high school. And I was utterly, totally convinced I would never have another meaningful friendship.  I would throw myself down on Jenny (my roommate and only friend) and my futon bunk bed and cry ever so dramatically. Pretty much a weekly occurrence. Okay, daily.

And here’s the truth. Here’s the hard, scratchy, uncomfortable truth. Friendships are work. They take time, patience, forgiveness, understanding, listening. Everything that within ourselves we just don’t feel like doing. And making friends is even more work. Because you have to go through many stages before you can get to the ‘we spontaneously hang out without an appointment stage’. But, if we choose not to work, choose not to grow, choose not to be vulnerable, then one day, you wake up and you’re ugly crying because you have no friends.

Proverbs 27:9 says this:

“Just as lotions and fragrance give sensual delight, a sweet friendship refreshes the soul.”

I just got back from a Young Life training in Georgia, and we were in class all day everyday for a week. The room we were in was set up classroom style, and my whole row was full of guys I work alongside. One day, we were all getting a little stir crazy. I reached in my bag and pulled out this lotion that legitimately smells like the Caribbean. I started rubbing it on my hands, and something hilarious happened. Slowly each guy in our row got a whiff of this lotion until they were all staring at me. Pretty soon we were passing it down and our whole row smelled like coconut and the ocean. It was magical.

I think that’s what Proverbs is saying about friendship.

That when we smell Caribbean lotion…

or we hear a great song that makes us want to dance….

or we taste hot apple pie and homemade vanilla ice cream…

or we see a sunset that we know our camera will never be able to capture.. .

or put our toes in fresh cut green grass…

We perk up. We take note of how great life is and how much we enjoy it. We celebrate.

And in just that same way, friendship refreshes our soul.

It’s like a little confetti explosion in our heart when we spend time with a close friend who gets who we are, where we came from, and where we want to go.

So, make time for the friends you have and press into those who aren’t quite there yet. They’ll be worth their weight in Caribbean lotion.