traveling together
From the beginning of time, God created us to be together in relationship—with Him and each other.
Designed in His image, we have a need for connection that comes from God, who has always been in community—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
My craving for closer friendships surfaced a few years ago while I sat across the table listening to and admiring the bond between two women I had just met during a luncheon. Their laughter was one of the most beautiful melodies I’d ever heard.
When I asked how long they’d been friends, they told me it had been more than sixty years. Sixty years. Although I was a little incredulous, the more time I spent with them the more obvious it became that, indeed, I was sitting in front of lifelong friends.
Admiring the way they loved each other, I noticed how well they knew each other and how much they enjoyed each other. When one paused, the other would finish her sentence and they’d both smile.
More interested in listening to their stories than eating my lunch, I put down my fork and picked up my pen like any good journalist and started asking as many questions as I could to find out their secret. How had they met? And what all had they done, all those years, to keep their hearts so closely knit together?
Their friendship started in grade school and continued long after they both married their high school sweethearts. Their husbands had played football on the same team, with a few others who were also still part of their “group,” along with their wives.
They shared how intentional they had been to make their friendships last. And they made sure I knew it didn’t just happen. Things had to be planned and time together had to be a priority. They vacationed together as families for years. And when they were young and had little money, they’d all get together to have a meal while the kids played. For years they had all met weekly to play cards, a tradition that was still going strong.
More than anything, they determined early on that they would be there for each other no matter what.
Now these two lifelong friends were widowed and counted on each other for companionship and laughter. They went on weekly shopping adventures and everything in between. They shared how they had an understanding that if one of them was feeling down she would call the other and say, “Hey, I need to get out of the house,” and they would go do something—together.
A friend who was with me shared how different our generation is, how busy we are. How much we rely on screen time more than face-to-face time. How much less our generation values building relationships and memories. Instead we’re building stats, portfolios, and platforms.
A twinge of sadness came over me as I wondered whether there would be anyone in my life I would know for forty or fifty years, much less sixty years. Besides my husband, what friend will be able to finish my sentences when I am seventy or eighty years old? Who will know me better than I know myself?
This kind of friendship is a rare treasure. But if I want the wealth of real-life community and deep heart connections, I am the only one who can pray for it, look for it, and build it. But I am the worst about letting life get filled up with tasks that take up my time and leave me too tired to get together with friends.
Jesus’s final prayer for His friends challenges me to change. In it I find His heart’s desire is for us to be closely connected with each other, “that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you” (John 17:21 NIV).
God did not create me to be a human doing but a human being, and part of that means being with my girlfriends. Even if it means getting together for lunch during our busy workday, meeting to plan menus for the week, doing laundry at one of our houses, cleaning out each other’s closets, or running errands together. It’s a start. Maybe a road trip to the beach or just going to the grocery store with a friend is all I need to start building a friendship that will last as long as I do!
You were all called to travel the same road and in the same direction, so stay together, both outwardly and inwardly.
Ephesians 4:4 Message