To Find a Friend, Be a Friend

When we first moved to Charlotte, I had no friends. But I did have a little hope that one day I'd find at least one. You see, before we moved from Virginia, my mom mailed me an article she'd seen in the newspaper about some women in Charlotte, NC who were college graduates that decided to be stay-at-home moms and start a ministry to encourage other SAHMs.

My mom didn't even live in Charlotte. The Sunday newspaper had somehow ended up in her driveway one morning and she found the story in the family section. She knew we were moving here so she cut it out and put a sticky note on the front page that said, "These sound like the kind of friends you need. I hope you find them when you get to Charlotte."

My heart was especially drawn to one of the women in the article. She and her husband owned a Chick-fil-A and she was expecting a baby in May. I had worked at Chick-fil-A in high school and I was pregnant with our first child due in May. I thought, with these two things in common surely it must be a sign that we could be friends.

I decided that I shouldn't wait until we got to Charlotte to find this friend. We would be moving there in a few months and we still needed to find an apartment, a pediatrician and a church. So I picked up the phone and called information for the home number of the TerKeurst family.

I still can't believe I did that. Lysa answered the phone and I blabbered the whole story - I am sure that I even mentioned working at CFA in high school. How pitiful! Surely she thought I was some lunatic! But she didn't show it. She was so sweet and offered the name of her pediatrician, suggested some areas of Charlotte to consider for apartments and encouraged me to call her when we got to town.

A few weeks after we moved to Charlotte, I called Lysa and she invited me to meet her for lunch at Chick-fil-A. I remember driving down the road and seeing the CFA sign. I got nervous and started praying, "Lord, please let this be someone I can be friends with. I am so lonely staying home with a baby and not knowing anyone in this big city. I need a good friend. Please make me seem like the kind of person she'd want to be friends with."

I felt so insecure. I had so little to offer to this woman who was part of leading a ministry and probably had a gazillion friends. That day as I prayed for God to give me a friend His Spirit whispered to my heart that instead of praying to have a good friend, He wanted me to pray that I could be a good friend, to her.

As Lysa and I ate chicken nuggets and sipped sweet tea, I remember thinking how fun she was. Her daughter Hope was so cute and our newborns looked like twins. Ashley and Joshua had come into the world only a week apart. They both had lots of brown hair and beautiful big brown eyes. Our cute kids gave us lots to talk about, but I still doubted she'd have any need for a new friend. She seemed to have everything a woman could want. Even so, I was thankful that even if it was just for that day, God had given me the gift of some time with a friend.

After lunch, Lysa invited me to her home for the afternoon. We ended up spending the whole day together, and most of the time I was bent over laughing with pains in my side and tears rolling down my face. She shared some of her funniest motherhood stories, one of which included something about an infection that wouldn't heal and the need for a heat lamp, which she didn't own. Instead she used a table lamp and her inner thighs got "lamp-burned" from the intense heat. All the while she was trying to nurse a newborn and appease a very active 1 year old.

By this point I was thinking, maybe I do have something to offer to this poor woman- bless her heart!

That day was the beginning of a life-long friendship. Our babies will be thirteen this May, and God's plan for our lives to be woven into friendship and ministry is simply amazing. There is so much He has taught me through our friendship. I'll share more on Friday since I am working at the P31 office all day tomorrow.

I wish I could remember the details of the lamp incident. I think you deserve to know them. (I am sure it will make you laugh so hard you'll cry too). So visit Lysa on her blog today and be sure to ask her to tell you more. She's got some fun stories there about Hope who is turning 14 tomorrow!

But before you go, is there anything fun you'd like to know about our friendship? If not leave a comment about how you met one of your good friends. I'd love to hear about it!