Bits for Sunday, February 22, 2009

I’ve been sitting here for about 45 minutes, staring at the screen (while randomly surfing the web) trying to think of what to say today. I spent 2 ½ days in the fat chair, getting up every four hours to take the next round of cold meds…perhaps those moments would have been better spent thinking of a topic! Then again, the cold meds gave me some pretty strange dreams, so perhaps it is better I didn’t think of something to say while my brain was on sick leave.

I told you a couple of weeks ago that I’ve been reading this Women of Faith devotion book this year – and my friend Lynnette is reading it too. We email back and forth a few times a week offering our thoughts on the topics and learning more about what’s happening in each other’s worlds while also sharing what we’re learning from God.

The book covers a different topic every week, and the last topic was about friendship. Reading about the value of friendship reminded me to be very thankful for my friends. Thankful for those who have been a constant part of my life over the last many years, and thankful for those who have come back after life had a way of pulling us apart for a time.

This quote from one of the readings stuck with me: “It costs something to be a friend: It takes time, patience, affection, strength, and love. But the blessing of a lasting friendship is more than worth the effort it takes, and the friendship gives back to us far more than we can imagine.”

This morning in our Sunday School class, we talked about the Proverbs 31 woman. All the men chuckled and looked away and all the women breathed a collective exasperated sigh. The mere mention of that chapter normally brings about such a response. Women find Ms. 31 to be ridiculously exasperating with her before-sunup-to-beyond-sundown flurry of buying, selling, cooking, sewing, planting, harvesting, nurturing – all without breaking a sweat.

The conversation prompted me to come home and find one of my favorite books written on Proverbs 31 – Beautiful in God’s Eyes. Elizabeth George, who wrote the book, has a great way of taking this impossible character sketch of a woman and bringing it into a manageable idea to attempt. But she says in the first chapter that it’s daunting…that the idea of becoming a woman of this caliber is like trying to climb a mountain – you just have to do it one step at a time.

Friendship (when done right) can be kind of like that Proverbs 31 persona too. It can be a very daunting task. Very costly, as the quote said. To be there when you’re needed, to sit through the exhausting times, to be joyful for the other when you might not be feeling it yourself, to love when you’d rather chuck a book at someone’s head, to extend strength when you really have none to spare…that’s true friendship.

It’s not something I have perfected at all. Sometimes I’m an admittedly terrible friend. But I’m thankful that I have understanding friends who are willing to extend the costly kind of love right back, and they allow me to stay on the friend roster despite my shortcomings.

The couple of days I spent home in the fat chair this week did rest my body and helped me feel better (actually sounding better must be yet to come…) but it also made me miss my friends terribly. I was ready to go to church today to get a hug or two (true friends don’t care if a hug might give them germs) and I’m ready to get back in the real world tomorrow to see more of these sweet people who call me friend.

Because for all the hard work it can be…the smile and hug of a friend is beyond reward enough.