The Gift of Friendship: Stories That Celebrate the Beauty of Shared Moments by

Language: dan
Format: azw3
Tags: REL012000, Female friendship—religious aspects—Christianity, Christian women—Religious life, REL012040
ISBN: 9781441220646
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2016-02-08T16:00:00+00:00

I’m so thankful for friendship. It beautifies life so much.

L. M. Montgomery, Anne of Avonlea

the messy and beautiful in-between

katie kenny phillips

Our relationship reminds me a bit of my fourth grade science project. Two cups propped up against a winter’s kitchen window, connected by a single string. Simple, really. Those two cups, each containing their own drops of coloring, standing side by side waiting for change, as life continued around them. Ups and downs. Breakfasts, lunches, dinners. Almost-spills. Worry and work and play. No kitchen windowsill is immune, because everywhere seconds become minutes and minutes become hours and things happen and things always change. And I watched the space in between on that windowsill, the blending of colors and the growing and the string becoming more than just fibers but something crystalizing into something else entirely. The in-between was mysterious and surprising and exactly what it was meant to be. Connected by a string—those cups—day after day, something beautiful was becoming.

Her name, Crystal, reminds me of that windowsill project and of our friendship. It reminds me of how God grew us together in our own in-betweens by drawing on our individual colors and time. He grew something beautiful from two women connected by the One who knew exactly what would become of our string as the seconds became minutes became soul-sister friendship.

God brought us together after a long while of just bumping into each other. We spent years sitting very far apart on that kitchen windowsill—not really connecting except for occasional hellos and a genuine appreciation for one another. It wasn’t until she was in the beginning stages of leaving the country with her family to do mission work and I was in the beginning stages of health problems with one of my kids, and then on to the even longer journey of foster care and adoption, that God surprisingly thrust us together—gently connecting us by a small but sturdy string—and something, something, started growing.

We each felt like wanderers on an unexpected and terrifying journey, and we locked hands and held up each other’s arms and muddled through the desert together.

It was in the middle of our unknowns where we found each other. Often we’d find ourselves crying over something that seemed impossible and we’d sniffle into loose, crumpled napkins from our purses. Or we’d secretly laugh when we admitted our fears—that once whispered aloud in the confines of her office actually sounded ridiculous. We’d drink similar coffees and finish each other’s sentences and marvel at how this was the time when God would build something together between us. We’d talk about us as kids, as teenagers, as moms, and as wives. Growth often took place while we prepared Bible studies together or hashed out events or topics that would occur in our church. Now that she is far away on the mission field, our friendship grows through texts sent in the middle of breakfast or while folding laundry, in the middle of the ordinary stuff that makes up seconds and minutes and hours and lives.

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