8
Because We All Need Friends in Low Places

My friends have made the story of my life. In a thousand ways they have turned my limitations into beautiful privileges, and enabled me to walk serene and happy in the shadow cast by my deprivation.

Helen Keller

In 1959, seven women were plucked from obscurity and ushered into the world’s spotlight when their husbands were chosen to be America’s first astronauts. Rene Carpenter, Trudy Cooper, Annie Glenn, Betty Grissom, Jo Schirra, Louise Shepard, and Marge Slayton met change in a way few people have. These wives and moms went from being regular military wives to being the faces behind the men of America’s new space program. They went from being ordinary women to being cover girls featured in Life magazine. They went from blending in on ordinary air force, navy, and marine bases to standing out in neighborhoods that were a destination of reporters and tourists alike.

As wives to test pilots and fighter pilots who also flew dangerous missions in World War II and Korea, these brave women weren’t strangers to fearing for their husbands’ lives. But knowing your husband is going to be shot from the tip of a tin can rocket into outer space? Well, it’s not difficult to understand why chain smoking became a common pastime for many of these wives.

Of course, not all the change was tough to embrace. The wives went from stretching a tissue-paper thin $7,000 a year military pay to earning a paycheck fattened up by several thousand dollars. They went from having tea with the ladies from the officers’ wives’ club to tea in the White House Rose Garden with Jackie Kennedy. As always, the good came with the difficult. But if there’s one thing these women and the wives of later astronauts believed, it’s that they wouldn’t have made it through such drastic change without the support of one another.

As history played out for these original reality housewife stars, many of the women experienced overwhelming tension and heartache from pressures associated with the space program. These pressures wounded and widowed some of the wives. Some marriages survived the stress; some broke from it. All of the wives at times found themselves sitting in the lowest of low places.

And all of them found friendships that helped pull them out. It’s not just words from a country song: we all need friends in low places.

In spite of all the nail-biting tensions and changes, some wives look back on that period with an especially strong fondness and nostalgia. Marilyn Lovell (whose husband, Jim, flew the famed Apollo 13 “Houston, we have a problem” mission) said this when reflecting on her friendships forged during that time: “Just talking about these friends—we all had such a good time in those days. . . . It was a time in my life that I would never give up. It was the best time in my life.”1

All the changes Marilyn and the others endured were difficult, but they made it through because of one glaring positive in their lives: friendships. Friendships were a key ingredient that helped these women adapt to the changes this stressful lifestyle brought.

Let’s face it: we don’t need to be married to an astronaut to experience some level of stress in our lives, especially the stress brought on by change. Quite often, my ability to accept and thrive through change is directly proportional to the state of my near and dear friendships.

When I hopscotch across the Gospels and read how Jesus—the perfect Son of God—walked this planet’s dusty, rutted roads with friends, I realize perhaps knotted-up, messed-up Kristen needs to do the same.

The Bible’s words about friendships are some of my most favorite. For example, Ecclesiastes 4:12 offers a familiar image: “By yourself you’re unprotected. With a friend you can face the worst. Can you round up a third? A three-stranded rope is not easily snapped” (The Message).

Safety in numbers—it’s not just for the military. Seasons of hard change are not for pulling off alone, keeping company with only you. Like a lone animal in the forest, doing so leaves you vulnerable and unprotected.

What Friendship Provides

Change itself can come around and take something away, leaving a lonely space where there wasn’t one before. If you’re like Allison and just sent one of your children to college, the empty seat at the dinner table is a reminder of the loneliness change brings. If you’re like Sherri and just went through a divorce, the empty place in your bed is a reminder of the loneliness change brings. So soldiering along through it alone is like fighting a shadow that looms twice as big in front of you. Without someone with whom you can share your feelings about this season of your life, that lonely space feels bigger than it really is. That lonely space feels lower than it needs to.

Friendship is more than an antidote to loneliness. Friendship is a strong cure that helps us walk up, down, and through the changes life brings. Friends are one way God heals the wounds and difficulties brought on by hard change. Friends make the hard days more manageable because they walk the winding roads with you. And friends who have gone through your kind of change before provide a model and valuable perspective for how to maneuver through it yourself.

No matter a woman’s season of change, it matters that she has friends.

Visit the Islands, Don’t Be One

As one who formerly lived on an island, I assure you it’s a dreamy place to visit in the physical sense. But in terms of sisterhood, it’s a dreadful place for your soul to permanently inhabit.

The other day, my dear friend Mary sent a Facebook message to some mutual friends and me asking us to pray for her. She was writing to share the news of her pregnancy as well as to ask us to pray for some upcoming tests she would undergo that would determine the health of her baby. In the past, Mary has had a difficult time carrying all of her pregnancies to term—she has learned the hard way that each pregnancy is an act of faith and dying unto oneself. But she could already feel the icy fingers of worry creeping toward her, and she wanted her sisters to pray against the fears and worries that threatened to overwhelm. In the message, she wrote, “Hopefully I will have good news to share, but if the news is bad, I don’t want to walk that path alone.”

Mary didn’t want to carry the burden of unfavorable test results by herself. Of course, as her friend, I didn’t want her to carry it alone either. And in God’s design, she’s not supposed to.

We are infinitely more comfortable doing something new or difficult with others, so when others travel our road of change with us it bolsters us in body and spirit. No matter how deep the trials brought by change, friendship lifts the spirit as it refreshes the soul (see Prov. 27:9 The Message). It makes the weary one able to take one more step forward, handle one more setback, have one more test completed, write one more word down. It provides confidence in human form, grace from God’s hands.

Most of the time I can stammer and stutter out words to heaven, and prayers from friends fortify my own words and actions. Sometimes, though, I wanted to pray for my own situation, but I was too worn out, too tuckered out to even utter a word. During those times God used faithful community members to take my place in the batting lineup when I didn’t have the strength to stand at the plate. When I was too weary to pull the words from my heart, God used friends to pull them out for me.

God wants us to have friends and fellow sojourners who see us as he does. So when we think we might not make it through, these encourager-warriors know the potential we have inside and urge us to carry on in God’s will for our lives. They not only urge us to thrive, they also take our hand and lead us toward a better way to do so.

Been There, Done That Kind of Help

We need community with others who can assure us we aren’t the first ones to endure this kind of change as well as those who will assure us that yes, you will make it through.

I live in the same town as the United States Air Force Academy, one of a small handful of rigorous federal service academies spread across the country. While my air force husband is not a graduate of the school, he taught cadets there and was constantly amazed at the workload carried by them. We have had cadets at our house for dinner, and they filled in the blanks with crazy insider stories of the daily determination it takes to succeed there.

Before a cadet steps foot on campus, he or she must go through a rigorous application process that requires high academic standards, demonstrated leadership skills, and a nomination or two from a member of Congress. In spite of all the work that goes into getting accepted, many students who are accepted still drop out during their first summer of intense training known as “beast.”

When I asked one of the cadets, Josh, to tell me what was the biggest factor in his making it through beast, he said without hesitation, “My fellow cadets, the friends I made there.”

I find it fascinating that he didn’t say, “I made it through because I was in shape” or “because I had mental discipline.” While those two factors likely played a part in his success, Josh heartily believes it was his friends who most helped him through.

Community grown from shared adversity forms a bridge that allows one person after another to cross from one challenge to the next. It is the way we grasp a realistic perspective on our change and see that we aren’t the only ones who have faced it. Scripture calls us to bear one another’s burdens so we may fulfill Christ’s law (see Gal. 6:2). That’s because where relationships and Jesus are involved, a burden shared with someone else’s similar burden divides the load for each person. Jesus will use friends to halve our troubles and burdens.

Naomi’s Story: Opening Your Heart to Be Served

A trio of widows huddled together in the country of Moab, three women left without the mainstay of support: men (see Ruth 1). The death of Naomi’s husband and two sons all but sealed the deal on a hopeless situation, especially since her two daughters-in-law were childless. No signs for a promising future were anywhere on the distant horizon.

What did lay in Naomi’s hands and vision was evidence of being left outside the Lord’s covenantal redemption. After all, her sons had gone against God’s law and married foreign women. Even if God wanted to turn her situation around, why would he? Naomi tasted the bitter reality of a bleak outlook and had her name changed to Mara, meaning “bitter.”

Sometimes change leaves us bitter and we wear it like a name, shaping and defining us.

Naomi didn’t want her young daughters-in-law to share in the bitter situation, so she desperately tried to talk both into returning home to their own families so they could remarry.

One daughter-in-law, Orpah, finally relented and left to rejoin her family. The other, Ruth, clung to her mother-in-law.

Having suffered through her husband’s death, Ruth knew the loss that comes with change. But she also knew this wasn’t the time to endure it alone. By clinging to Naomi, Ruth took part in sharing the burden and therefore lifting it for each grieving woman. What’s more, in clinging to Naomi, she clasped on to Naomi’s faith. And in clasping on to Naomi’s faith, she clasped on to hope that this loss was not the end of their story.

With care that spoke of her love for Naomi, she pleaded, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay” (Ruth 1:16).

Vowing that not even death would separate them, Ruth showed a devotion that went well beyond the care of a daughter-in-law to a mother-in-law. Her devotion sprang from a God-placed desire to show deep love and to give wings to that love through actions that provided both women with a future of hope.

With Ruth’s arms wrapped around her, Naomi had a choice: open her heart to accept Ruth’s offer of devoted friendship or reject it altogether. Witnessing Ruth’s determination, she chose to accept it, and from then on they handled their change together.

That is the blessing of a good friend: they outlast the protests. They stick close and refuse to let their friend go through their change alone. They see through all the “I’m fine” and “I’m good” statements to the heart of the matter and help where they can.

But we can’t ignore the fact that ultimately, Naomi made the choice to allow Ruth into her life for the long haul. She chose to say yes to vulnerability, yes to letting her daughter-in-law do the gritty parts of life with her while she was at her lowest.

After traveling back to Naomi’s hometown of Bethlehem, Ruth found a field in which she could pick up leftover grain left behind by the harvesters. As God divinely arranged, the field belonged to Boaz, a close relative of Naomi’s. And as that close relative, Boaz was also a kinsman-redeemer. A kinsman-redeemer held the responsibility of preserving the family name and property. Preserving that could play out in various scenarios, one of which was to marry the widow of a deceased relative and therefore preserve that relative’s bloodline. With favorable encouragement from Ruth, Boaz took the necessary steps to do just that. After he married Ruth, they had a son named Obed, who became the father of Jesse, who in turn was the father of King David. And from King David came the King of Kings: Jesus. Once again, the difficulties from change birthed unimaginable blessings, this time due in part to an extraordinarily devoted friendship that sprang first from the grace of God and second from the actions of Ruth and Naomi. When Naomi’s faith waffled, Ruth’s was emboldened. Ruth was able to grab on to God’s strength when Naomi’s was weak. And when Ruth wasn’t sure what to do, Naomi gave sound counsel. The actions of both women kept them alive physically and spiritually. And in return, the once-foreigner turned family member and the bitter-turned-hopeful mother-in-law were blessed to take part in the lineage of Christ.

God uses our friends to show us how to thrive through change. And when we keep our own hearts open to receiving those friendships, we pave the way for God to use that community as our own “kinsman-redeemer.” Just as a kinsman-redeemer of biblical times took actions to preserve the family name, your community kinsman-redeemer takes action to preserve an accurate picture of yourself. As Bonhoeffer says about friendship, “Visitor and visited . . . recognize in each other the Christ who is present in the body; they receive and meet each other as one meets the Lord. . . . They receive each other’s benedictions as the benediction of the Lord Jesus Christ.”2 In other words, community is a powerful way God’s heart is made known to our own.

When you sit in the middle of change, a friend is one who assures you, comforts you, and holds you. When you don’t know how to pray, friends become the words and actions of Jesus and prayers of the Holy Spirit. When you don’t know what to think, they become an accurate perspective on your situation. They hold hands and hearts and are a light when you don’t know which way to go. They are worth opening your heart up for.

The other beautiful part about opening yourself up to let others serve you? From the overflow of that blessing, you will want to serve others too.

Cheryl’s Story: Opening Your Heart to Serve Others

Once upon a time, Cheryl married an all-around great guy named Keric who was also a very successful sales manager. Together they appreciated perk after perk of an income with wide borders, including owning a large home in the same neighborhood as a former president of the United States. Cheryl reaped the benefits of a live-in housekeeper and nanny who helped manage her home and care for her and her husband’s two young children.

While Cheryl and Keric enjoyed the company of a wide circle of friends whose lifestyles mirrored their own, they couldn’t ignore the growing inner turbulence calling them to do something radical in comparison to their current way of life. More and more often, they felt “alone in a crowd” and an ever-increasing difficulty meshing their inward values with their outward lifestyle. Their desire to “pull up stakes” and drastically change their situation was confirmed Sunday after Sunday at church when their pastor’s sermon echoed Jesus’s call to follow him. They knew Jesus was calling them to something bold and different.

After much prayerful consideration, Cheryl and Keric decided the right thing to do was for Keric to leave his lucrative job to join the US Air Force. They knew this decision brought a real possibility they would lose connections with friends who didn’t understand their choice to change lifestyles. They knew Keric’s job change might upset their family as well, especially since at the time the United States was building up to go to war with Afghanistan and Iraq. They knew Keric’s income in the air force would be one-fifth of his current salary. And Cheryl knew she would have to say bye-bye to the comforts of a live-in housekeeper and nanny.

Sometimes you must leave the comforts of what is to embrace the potential of what will be.

But once they made the change, they also knew a great inner satisfaction and felt a keen awareness of God’s protection over their family. While the many changes associated with Keric’s new career brought much uncertainty to their lives, under it all lay a profound sense of peace that their family was in the middle of God’s will.

Once they became a military family, everything fell into place, and Cheryl felt truly at home in their new lifestyle. Cheryl attributes much of this peace to several factors, but at the top of the list was God’s abundant grace in the form of meaningful friendships. For one thing, what both Cheryl and Keric felt was missing from their lives before Keric’s career change was the presence of deep, genuine relationships with other couples and families. What followed from their obedience through the change was a level of friendship unknown to them before.

As Cheryl learned her way around the various difficulties of military life—namely, the absence of her spouse for long periods of time and of close proximity to her extended family—the friendships she formed were key to her thriving through this lifestyle change, she believes. While Cheryl and her husband navigated a new military life, they also navigated family life with two toddlers. Their friendships with families of similar ages gave them support in knowing how to maneuver the ever-changing waters of parenting. And when the difficult hours between naptime and dinnertime lingered, Cheryl’s friends and neighbors gave her something to look forward to by way of a giant playdate in the cul-de-sac. When Cheryl became frustrated with the exhausting realities of balancing housekeeping, grocery shopping, and personal hygiene with two young children and a dog underfoot, her friends gave her support by way of listening ears and camaraderie.

Cheryl believes her friendships not only helped her thrive during her family’s lifestyle change, but they helped give her a big picture view of her family’s role in God’s greater plan of helping others. To illustrate this, Cheryl recalls a story that took place in her early days as a military wife. On one evening in late spring, she found that every one of her new friends’ husbands was traveling as well as her own. So as they gathered in the cul-de-sac for their afternoon ritual playdate, they decided to converge at Cheryl’s house for dinner with whatever leftover tidbits were in everyone’s fridge. Each wife had a sparse offering on her own, but when combined, the meal was a feast. The kids were all happy to eat and play together, and the moms were relaxed and able to enjoy an easier evening away from the stove.

Cheryl remembers how that one simple time together laid a cornerstone to a foundational belief that not only was community a powerful antidote to her major life change, it was a tremendous fringe benefit that helped her see life completely differently. She says, “Individually, God gives us each talents, but pieced together with gifts he’s given others, we become something bigger, better, and more fulfilling than what we could be by ourselves.” And together, those friends serve to double the joys and halve the sorrows in a math equation only God could orchestrate. Cheryl’s friends became her Aaron and Hur and held up her arms as she grew weary (see Exod. 17:12), but they were also her Ruth-sisters who shared in her joy by celebrating her victories (see Ruth 4:13–15).

Because of the sense of peace she found following her obedience through the change, Cheryl had the ability to focus on the people around her family and more intentionally interact with them. Cheryl served love on a plate when she invited people over for one of her fabulous meals that could put a Food Network chef to shame. When a neighborhood mom needed help with child care, she watched her children for her. When the temperatures soared in the hot summer months, Cheryl dropped off a perfect tall glass of sun-brewed sweet tea topped with fresh mint to friends and neighbors.

Cheryl and her husband kept their hearts open to their neighbors and found that loving and serving them brought a fresh-air quality that didn’t take away the difficulties brought by change but did allow their lives to flourish during it. It buoyed them on to serve their greater community at large too by volunteering at the local homeless shelter and becoming more active in their church.

In Lysa TerKeurst’s book The Best Yes, she writes, “The one who obeys God’s instruction for today will develop a keen awareness of his direction for tomorrow.”3 Cheryl and Keric proved this truth when they first obeyed and then followed God’s leading toward a new lifestyle direction. I would also add that the one who obeys God’s instructions for today also develops a keen awareness of God’s fulfilled promises for tomorrow. And those fulfilled promises may look like a wealth of soul-fulfilling friendships that feed you in ways you never imagined.

How to Be a Friend to the One Going through Change

When Jesus sat in the Garden of Gethsemane the night before he was crucified, he asked one thing of his disciples: “Sit here while I pray” (Mark 14:32).

He simply wanted their presence, nothing more. No small words, no grand displays of emotion. Because as Jesus waited to endure the most harrowing trial any person has ever endured, he wanted only the comfort of presence in his affliction. Perhaps in that is the key to being a good friend to those going through change.

Just sit with them.

My dear friend Rebecca models this so incredibly well. If you are blessed to have her in your circle of friends, you are blessed to know the way she sits quietly with you. It’s a beautiful thing to behold because as she sits with you, she holds no ulterior motive other than to simply listen. With her hands folded and lips closed, she opens her heart to receive what her friend has to give in the moment. Of course, a hallmark of good friendships is when both people get to do this from time to time. But if one person is going through a difficult season of change, the other must be willing to place her own words on an altar in one conversation or several and listen with abandon and intention. Like Rebecca, she must reconcile the fact that her and her big opinions don’t need center stage for every conversation, particularly when her friend is going through a monumental change.

This isn’t always easy to do. Being a good listener takes a real lack of insecurity and the knowledge that one friend’s circumstances and victories in them don’t diminish your own gifts, choices, and circumstances. It takes compassion to listen and know her struggles do not elevate your position in the imaginary Woman Who Has It Most Together competition. But more than that, it takes humility to put all parts of yourself on hold as you quietly but decisively put a spotlight on your friend. To the friend going through change, humility says, “I see you and what you’re going through. Because you have such incredible worth to me, this part of your story is worth hearing too.”

Humility is the heartbeat of all encouragement, and a good friend’s heart pulses with it.

No one lived this more than Jesus. But it should be said that while a good friend sits and listens to her loved one going through change, this doesn’t mean there is never, ever a time to speak up. When Jesus met the woman at the well in Samaria, he didn’t completely ignore her living situation, which included a live-in boyfriend. But he didn’t cover their conversation with condemning words either. (Of course, Jesus never condemns. He convicts, but he doesn’t condemn—see Romans 8:1.) He waited for her to ask for truth, and after she did, he shared with her his wisdom, which included an accurate assessment of her situation.

The woman at the well had a heart willing to receive, and your friend may or may not share the same willing heart. Either way, that’s okay. But if you sense her wanting your honest reflections on her season of change, then your only job is to obediently follow through. Because part of being the kind of Proverbs friend that loves at all times (see Prov. 17:17) is being the friend who loves through words that may sting but nonetheless are for her and not against her.

When human love guides our actions, we are more inclined to be the kind of friend who keeps her own selfish desires first. But when we love with spiritual love, we see the other person as Jesus does—someone crafted in the Father’s likeness and stamped with his approval. So whether we agree or disagree with how they handle something, we remember to treat her like Jesus would. When both friends keep this in mind, both friends can enjoy an orchard full of fruit.

By the same token, we girls must keep our expectations out of friendships. If we feel led to listen and minister to a friend going through change, the best thing we can do is not expect anything in return. We don’t treat our time with them as an investment we assume a future profit on as much as a gift we give with no strings attached. We must strive to keep the heart of Jesus at the heart of our interactions and remember that the purest love serves and sacrifices rather than expects and demands.

What If I Know I Need Friends and Can’t Find Them?

Bonhoeffer called the grace of community “the roses and lilies” of life.4 But some experiencing change have discovered community can be the thorns and weeds of life too. Perhaps that’s you. Women have hurt you, and as far as you’re concerned, the only way to make living well through change possible is to keep your “friends” far, far away.

Undoubtedly, it is a tempting idea, and one that I’ve entertained too.

But alone is never the way Jesus asks us to go. So what are some ways you and I can get brave and invite others into our hearts and homes? How can we open our hearts to spend time forming friendships so that in the process we are better equipped to handle change as we serve others?

We do three brave things: open up, show up, and lift up.

First, we get brave when we open up our home to other people. Now, I’ll be the first person to tell you this feels twice as brave because opening your home makes you feel twice as vulnerable. First, there’s the idea that people coming over will see your dirt and judge you for it. It may feel that way, but women don’t do that nearly as much as we assume they do. Besides, which kind of house makes you exhale a bit and relax—the kind dotted with messes or the kind buttoned up to perfection like a museum? I’ll take the messy one, thank you very much.

Also, this feels especially brave because you could invite people over and they don’t come. Let me assure you, if that happens, you will survive. How do I know? Because I’ve hosted a playdate and thrown a party at my house and had not one single person show up. For real. But more often than not, people did show up. We ate dinner together, talked together, watched our kids play Thomas the Tank Engine together, drank afternoon tea and coffee together, discussed interesting books and movies together, and got to know each other together. Have I become lifelong friends with everyone I’ve ever invited over for dinner? No. But have I developed a few near and dear friendships with some? Absolutely. And those friendships were worth every rejection or it-didn’t-work-out I’ve ever received.

Second, we show up at places where other people are guaranteed to show up. For me, this looks like places that are crawling with women, like church and my kids’ school. It means getting involved in just one small area at either place (or both) so I can get to know others. When my kids were small, this also looked like story time at either the library or Barnes & Noble. I met one treasured friend because we both kept showing up at our neighborhood park after our kids awoke from their afternoon naps. When I look back over the years, it’s amazing to see how many women God placed in my path simply because I was standing on it.

Last, we lift up every single friendship concern to our Father in heaven. When I do it, I don’t always use my sweet Sunday school voice. If I am going through a stressful friendship season, I have no problem being honest with God in my assessment of the situation. God is intimately acquainted with every inch of me, so he isn’t shocked or put off by my real feelings. What’s more, God truly desires for me to have community. So when I tell him my desire and it aligns with his, I know he’ll answer my prayer in the way that’s best for me.

It’s Not You

If you look out your front window today and find your friendship landscape sparse, don’t assume that means you’re doing something wrong. And please, please don’t assume it means there’s something intrinsically wrong with you. Instead, assume it means that during this season, God wants you to focus your attention somewhere else. Perhaps this season opens up room for you to hang out closer to him or your family. Just keep taking your desires to his throne room. Keep talking to him as your friend. You never know what tomorrow may bring and who he may bring to your path.

The only way to guarantee never making friends again is to never try again. If I want near and dear friendships to help me thrive through change, I’m going to need to put in a little effort here and now. The fruit of that effort? Friendships of the highest good, given to help me when I’m at my lowest.

Prayer

Dear Father in heaven, thank you for being an always present, always faithful friend in my life. You are the only One who provides never-disappointing friendship, and I thank you for it. Help me see myself as someone worthy of good, enduring friendships, and show me how I can bravely and wisely put myself in places to find genuine friends who love me well during all seasons of my life. Make me the kind of friend who not only opens up her own heart to be served but generously serves others as well. In the name of Jesus, who is a friend to all, amen.