For about a year, I found myself feeling the void of deep, satisfying, edifying friendships.
Do I have amazing friends? Yes. I count myself lucky to be a part of our community – surrounded by other women and couples who are invested in the same things I am, raising kids, figuring out life together. We have no shortage of friends. We often say as a way to emphasize how much we love our community, that we would feel safe leaving our son with any of them, for any length of time.
And yet. I was feeling profoundly empty when it came to friendship. I was jealous of other people’s relationships as they were portrayed on social media. My brain knew that Instagram was just a billboard, but my heart felt the longing for what I saw on the other side.
I was desperate for a mentor. Someone older and wiser and who had walked a similar path. Someone who would check in on my heart, and ask me how I was really doing. Someone who could shepherd me and offer me guidance.
Like many people, I chalked this emptiness up to the pandemic and the lack of physical community. But the more that I dug into the root of this insecurity, the more that I felt like I was missing out on something.
So I prayed. For months. That God would bring to life healthy, edifying friendships and a mentor to guide me. Earnestly asking him to provide a space for me to feel seen and known and invested in.
I do a lot of my praying and listening in the car on the way to and from daycare drop off, since its often the most silent part of my day. There was one week in particular where I was seeking the Lord on this pretty consistently. Through tears, one day, I asked God why he wasn’t giving me the friends I wanted.
He responded to my pettiness in a way that only He could.
“I want to be your friend first. Be my friend.”
It hit me like a freight train. Of course!
The emptiness I felt. The longing I had for a shepherd. The void of guidance. The need to feel seen and known.
He was the answer to all of that, and was there the whole time.
I started my ministry life with pre-schoolers where a core tenant of what we taught was this simple phrase: Jesus wants to be my friend forever. And that day, I began my journey to naming God as my best friend and figuring out what that actually means.
It has meant that I talk to Him more than anyone.
I am a sharer. I like to tell people about things going on in my life. I like to let people in and find common ground. While I don’t think that personality tests are a completely accurate reflection of life – one of my Top 5 on Strengths Finder is Connectedness. I love to find ways to connect with people and this often means just sharing about my own life.
God as my friend has shown me that I can share more with him. Be real with him about what I’m going through, talk to him, ask him for help. I have been trying to get into a rhythm of processing with God first, before trying to find someone in my life to process with. Both are valuable. But what He has shown me through this is that some stuff is better left with him. I’ve even started writing “messages” as notes in my phone to help me process. Since I often understand my own feelings better when I write them.
I used to tout that my “spiritual gift” was transparency. I would tell anyone anything about my life. But all that left me with was a false sense of connection and feeling tapped out because I had violated my own boundaries. My transparency is reserved first for God, then processed with others.
He has shown me where I lack.
Through a deeper connection and relationship with God, he has shown me that so much of what I was wanting from friendships, I was not giving. I wanted something deep and edifying, but was I even being that for other people? I wanted to feel seen and known, but was I seeing and knowing other people? I hadn’t taken the steps I needed to be the friend I wanted. He started showing me where I could improve and grow as a friend, as only a gentle Father can. Good things from God often come in the form of discipline and correction.
He is the vine, I am the branch
The farther I am from him, the deeper the void of friendship feels.
When I am satisfied with him, I am satisfied with my life.
Ultimately every empty feeling I had leading up to this was the result of a lack of deep relationship with Jesus.
John 15:5-7
“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.”
Apart from Jesus, I have no good thing. I can do nothing. My intimacy with Jesus is a direct predictor of how fulfilling the rest of my relationships will be.
John 15 goes on further to say, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.”
When I dig into his Word and seek his face, deep, satisfying love is the result. When I pursue a friendship with Jesus, he makes known to me the direction I should go – he shepherds me. When I remain in him, my life bears life. Abundant life. I will always feel like I am missing something when I am disconnected from the life source. God doesn’t deal in scarcity. We’re not missing out a single thing when we’re with Him.
If you’re like me and feeling the gap of friendship, let me encourage you to seek God first. It’s not some magic spell that will poof the relationships you want into life, but God doesn’t work like that. He will always give us what we need, and often that looks vastly different than what we’re asking for.