A year ago, this happened.
These are the feet of some friends I love (and my own feet) standing around a pot full of ashes. It was a bitterly cold day and we read some Scripture and then lit some sad things on fire. It was beautiful and hard and so very necessary.
It felt like ripping a band-aid off. I threw my sad thoughts, my angry thoughts, my painful thoughts into that pot and because of the wind and the freezing temperatures, there wasn’t much ceremony. What in my mind might have been sentimental became intensely practical. These things needed to burn and it was cold and we were going to do it quickly before we froze. So we did.
I am intensely thankful for the feet in that photograph and the women they belong to. Friendships of substance are not easy to come by. Relationships where you feel safe to share your pain are worth fighting for. Over the last several years I’ve had relationships come and go, some in healthy ways and some in ways that were brutally painful. It has made me even more appreciative of the way women have impacted my life, even when the impact was wounding. Even in those situations, I have learned.
It has been tough to make peace with the end of a relationship, even when it is for good reasons. I know I’ve felt that sense of failure or a desire not to trust again. As I look at the picture of those feet, I feel the grief that one of those pairs of shoes has gone missing this year– moved on to a new state and a new life and still her impact lingers in such a beautiful way.
Other friends have cycled out of my life in big ways and small ways– some burning bridges behind them and some with a door always left open, but time constraints have made it more difficult to be together in the close community we used to share. It’s painful, but it’s always the way life works. It can be tough to imagine trusting again after being hurt by those losses.
This has all made me long for heaven where moth and rust don’t destroy and friends don’t move away and we don’t burn bridges when things get hard.
I am not a perfect friend. I am not good with feelings, my daily life keeps me pretty busy and I love boundaries. This means I can end up being unavailable emotionally or physically to the people I want to connect with. I wish that weren’t the case, but I know it is. I’m thankful there are women in my life who have had grace with my failings and have continued to pursue relationships with me. I can’t tell you how important that has been to me as I’ve worked through tough things in my life.
We need each other. We were built for community.
I know there are those of you who have been hurt by women and you don’t want to risk again. I want to encourage you to keep searching for your people. Look for women who are willing to be vulnerable without having unrealistic expectations about your ability to solve their problems. Look for the women who want to listen, who have a curious spirit, who will be willing to dig in deep with you. Look for women who aren’t scared by your grief, but can encourage you to press in and then move forward. And BE THOSE KINDS OF WOMEN in your friendships, too.
It is too easy to check out of the friendship world during these stressful years of motherhood. I can tell myself I don’t have time to invest in other women. I don’t like that movie they’re going to see. I don’t have the money for a lunch out. The church women’s event doesn’t cater to my interests. I don’t want to love and have someone move away or decide they don’t love me back.
But there are such rewards that have come from risking an investment in other women. I am a better wife and mother when I have other women to normalize my frustrations. What may sound like complaining or whining or venting can actually be a voicing of the deep need we have to know we aren’t alone even as we may spend the majority of our waking hours surrounded by toddlers. Women encourage me to keep going even when I’m exhausted by the struggle. They give me new ideas on how to approach old problems. They tell me what my kids don’t– that what I’m doing matters and I’m living a life of value.
I don’t know what my life would be like without the feet in that picture. I don’t know where my heart would be if not for their insistence that some things need to be burned and left behind. I needed them to push me and I need them to be open to being pushed too as they burned their own hard things in that fire.
In the cold moment of watching those things burn through my blurry tears, I wasn’t noticing much. When my friend sent me the picture she snapped, what seemed glaringly obvious was the empty spot where another pair of shoes should be. In my soul I felt so convinced that like the empty plate set for Elijah at Passover celebrations, there was an empty spot left for the Holy Spirit. He was present where two or more of us were gathered that day. These friendships are not just something we do for fun, but they are an act of The Body of Christ as we encourage and convict each other. I don’t believe they’re optional, but are how we’re intended to live.
Female friendships can be hard. I will never minimize that. But they are also something I believe we were designed for. We were meant to live in community and without it we start to close up. We have to push through the obstacles of pride or business or awkwardness to get into genuine community with women who need us and who want to be needed. Keep working for it. It’s worth it.
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