Friends, pt.2

I am loving all of your different perspectives. I love that you’re sharing highs and lows, ideas and struggles, and more than anything, yourself. That's a real friend. It helps those of us who may be struggling more than others can rest assured that we’re not alone – we’re not the only one who feels like they have no friends. But of course we’d never tell someone that because then they’d think we're a loser and never want to be our friend. No! That was in junior high. We’re big girls now and we were born to be friends.

I want to tell you how this came up with me and God recently and how I knew He wanted to rearrange some things in my life to fill the lonely place in my heart with friends. As I shared yesterday, my schedule this past year had gotten so full with my kids (school, homework needs, adapting to different stages they are in, etc.), investing more time in my marriage, working at P31 as an Ex Director, radio, speaking… that I had to cut back somewhere.

I prayed about it and felt God’s leading me to cut back on my writing (for a season) and trim back on the amount of time I spent talking on the phone, hanging out with neighbors, and a small group I was in because I needed to be in the P31 office an extra day each week.

I didn’t completely cut out my friendships, of course, but I did find my self having less and less one-on-one time with close friends for heart connects. Looking back, I probably pendulum swung a little too far, but isn’t that easy to do when you are trying to find a new place of balance?

Several weeks ago I found myself checking email repeatedly. I checked it in the morning when I woke up. I made breakfast and checked it again. I had my devotional time and checked it again.

Now, I have a thing about getting white space in my inbox, but this day it was more than just managing my emails. This day my heart was going back for a reason. The fourth time I checked my emails, I felt the Holy Spirit cause me to pause and ask myself, “Why do you keep checking your emails?”

I sat there and let my heart respond honestly. I wasn’t quite if it was me or God answering but my soul intertwined with His spirit whispered: “You keep coming back because your heart longs to connect with a friend.”

I thought about it and realized that in the overwhelming busyness of life for the past several months, I had let my friendships reduce to quick connections via email. Here I was trying to fill a God-created need with a white screen and black alphabet keys. That day I closed my laptop and called one of my closest friends. She happened to be available so I took some time off work to spontaneously meet her at a coffee shop and go for a walk.

Friendships are not easy to come by. Time is limited with lives that are so busy. Yet I know that God created us with this need, and He wants to meet it with Himself and others. But it takes being intentional and evaluating things in our lives like that create a false sense of connection like email, television, and overboard activities. We have to carve out a place in our lives for friendships.

If you are new to my blog today, we started this conversation yesterday, so be sure to scroll down and join in this girl-talk. To make it fun, I am going to do a give-away of something "friend-shippy" like a Starbuck's card, a book and maybe some jewelry later this week. 'Cause girlfriends love to win free stuff! Please post your own thoughts about women's friendships, or today's post.

Simply click the word "comments" below - and be sure to leave your email or come back this week to see if you're the winner and to keep this girl-talk going.