Not Alone

Six weeks ago, I was sitting on my couch, filled with dread at the thought of what I was about to do. I had signed up for a bible study where I only knew one person. The thought of walking into a room and being on the outside - being the new person - terrified me. I was scared I wasn't going to fit in, or that I wasn't going to make any friends. But I had been praying hard for community - praying for the bravery to walk into new rooms with new people and say 'Here I am'

Easier said than done, but at 6:15 my friend Kay picked me up to carpool and we headed to the study.

It sounds cheesy - but it's hard to look back and imagine ever feeling so nervous about going into that study. Six weeks later, and I feel like I have a whole new circle of people that I know and trust. A circle of believers that have one goal, which is just to be kingdom builders and encourage anyone they come into contact with. We went through a study called 'Not Alone' - which focuses on friendships. I like to imagine the Lord smiling when I, who had been desperately praying for community, was so resistant to join a study that ended up being all about friendship. This will probably be a lengthy post, but I wanted to share some things I learned during this study, because they were truly transformative for me.

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Moving to Japan was pretty easily one of the hardest things i've ever done. My life before Japan was pretty safe - I loved my job, my city, and I was lucky enough to still live near all of my best friends from college. So to be the first one to move really far away - especially Japan of all places - it was really, really hard for me. Something Drew told me long before we actually left, was that moving out the country is one of the truest test of friendships. I worried about things changing, about life going on without me, and what being on opposite time zones and sides of the world would really mean. Plus, I was also afraid of making new friendships - of putting myself out there in a place where I didn't know anyone.

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The truth is this: Friendships are HARD. They take work - they take wading into the mess of others' lives - and the transparency of revealing our own. They take time, intentionality, and pursuit. Something that never really occurred to me before this study is this:

Godly friendships declare the love of Christ - they're a beautiful, powerful testimony to God's love for us.

I'd never thought about our friendships that way - but truthfully - they are so powerful, so important, and so worth cherishing. Because our friendships aren't really just about us - they're about glorifying the Lord- and what a privilege it is that our friendships have the power to do so. What a privilege it is to get to enter into peoples' lives and stand alongside them watching God work.

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Something that showed up over and over to me in this study? Being intentional. What does it really mean? What does it look like? And what I learned is this: Intentionality is the thing that keeps our friendship afloat.

Quotes from the study that have stuck with me:

"Intentional communication is necessary for unity and growth. Intentionality requires dedicated time, vulnerabiliy, honesty, listening, and leading with love.

"Deep friendships are cultivated through intentionality - shallow friendships will never get to grow roots."

The soil of friendship is time spent - in person, text, a factime - we make time for who we VALUE."

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Being intentional can be hard when your oceans away, but it's been life-changing for me to watch the people I love truly show up for me. Scheduling weekly FaceTime dates, sending small gifts, handwritten letters, care packages, and more. What a privilege it is to be loved this way - and i'm learning that these are the friendships that can withstand not only the test of time - but anything else that may come our way. It's because our bond is deeper than the surface things - it's because we pushed through the pleasantries and the shallow, brief 'catching up'

Another quote from this study that has really stuck with me:

"Getting real with our friends is the difference between feigning to be like Jesus, and really following him"

In covenant friendships - we ask the hard questions. We do the hard things.

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Our time is the thing we find the most precious. We guard it - and we think it's more important than anyone else's, and there's no way we could possibly give more of it up.

My friendships have taught me this:

You can always give up more time.

You can always carve out space, make room, and schedule it out. Being intentional with our friendships - it's hard. It takes sacrifice, and humility - but it's life giving and it changes everything.

I think a lot about that fitness quote that says "If you hate starting over, stop giving up."

I think this applies well to friendships too - we have to stay consistent. We can't keep starting over. The good ones - the covenant ones - are the friendships that we stay invested in, the ones we keep pursuing despite any type of distance or life changes.

I've learned the most about Jesus through the friendships that haven't even slightly wavered since moving to Japan. And I'm also learning more about Jesus in the new friends I've met here in Japan - that run head first into deep friendship - that freely offer their time and their transparency.

I'm learning how to have covenant friendships, how to make new ones - but also how to pursue and protect the ones i've already been blessed with.

More importantly - i'm learning to dive headfirst into the freedom of being transparent and bold and real - because that's really where the magic is.