How To Have Healthy Friendships

Scriptures: Proverbs 11:25, Luke 6:31, Romans 12:10-11

My feet have walked confidently into so many rooms only to have my heart suddenly take on a toddler status, grab the door frame, and refuse to follow my feet. Because it looked scary in there. And overwhelming. The irony when this has happened is that usually the room is full of people. But the thing is, my heart can’t easily find an anchor. A face. A friend. 

But I’m an extrovert, and my feet are fast, and my heart has no choice but to hang on for dear life. And that’s what it was looking for as we walked into this particular room one evening, passing by the chips and salsa. Dear life. No big deal. Just the feeling of being alive and safe and cared for and valued and enjoyed. Life. 

The chocolates always look like they offer life so I beelined for the sweets. If I’m going to feel lonely, at least I’ll have chocolate as my companion. It’s always so delicious but equally so deficient. Chocolate has been a poor substitute for friendship over the years. But I keep coming back. 

Just when I started to feel the weight of my loneliness and my poor heart was about to throw a raging tantrum and demand my feet make a run for it out of this terrible place, I see my friend. She waves me over. And my heart and feet sigh relief in tandem and go join her. She opens the circle she’s standing in and introduces me to everyone. 

I was seen. I was invited. I was welcomed. No chocolate has ever done that. 

This is why friendship is such a God-designed gift. You and I are in desperate need of being seen, invited, welcomed. Of feeling alive, safe, and valued. Of enjoying others and loving others and needing others. Of being full of life and pouring life out on others. 

You were not designed to live alone with your heart fighting with your feet, wondering if a room has room for you. Or if a community can commune with you. You were designed to have circles widen for you, and to widen the circle. You were designed to see others, and to be seen by others. You were designed for anchoring others, and to be anchored by others. Because you were designed in God’s image: God is the one who sees, invites, and anchors us all.

Let’s be the friend who is aware of the room, aware of the greater heart postures walking around. The one who can’t wait to widen the circle and anchor a soul. The one who remembers the feeling of brave feet but weak hearts. 

The one who knows chocolate pales in comparison to friendship. 

Today, thank God for the friends who have widened the circle for you. Ask God to open your eyes to what friends need: a circle-widener. 

Scriptures: Colossians 3:12, Hebrews 10:24-25, 1 Thessalonians 5:11

I’ve had “friends” over the years who have tried their best to make me small. They pointed out insignificant things: how I should have checked the weather and chosen better clothing, how I should have planned better, how I should really look more like them. Not in a loving way or with a gentle spirit, but to make themselves appear better, smarter, wiser. When you get “shoulded” on, let this be a signal to you. These people are struggling to control you. They seem to be greatly bothered that you aren’t looking like they’d like you to. 

I struggled greatly in these friendships because I wanted to be accepted. But a dear friend said, “The only acceptance you need is God’s.” This counsel gave me great freedom to not have to care what this friend tried to tell me I should or should not be like. And eventually, I was free to not be their friend.

Stepping on others to be greater is not a good quality of a friend. There’s a time for joking and poking fun, to be sure. But you can have fun joking when the joking comes from someone who is safe to you. Someone who loves you for who you are. Someone who doesn’t pass out judgment slips but passes out grace gifts. 

Real friends don’t make you feel dumb or small. They make you feel the actual size you are: human size. Not a goddess or larger than life. But a human with strength and struggle. Just like everyone else. As Dr. Brené Brown says, “What we don’t need in the midst of struggle is shame for being human.” 

Choose friends who accept both your strengths and weaknesses. Friends who don’t try to control you. Or shame you. Or tell you that you are unacceptable in your quirks or your differences. Choose friends who are kind to you. Cmpassionate. Gracious. Truthful. Loving. Gentle. Patient. 

And be that friend to others. If you read these words and you are convicted that you often want to point out, ever so slightly, how someone has fallen short according to your standards, you may need to do some soul searching. Why do you need to control how others make choices that don’t affect you? Will it improve your day? Your life? Hardly. And it cuts that person down. Lose, lose. 

In order to be a great friend and have great friends, we can practice both not having to control others and not allowing others to control us. We can be free to be secure in who God has made us to be. And we can stand secure that God accepts us. Every single part. Thank God that he is clothed in compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience toward us.  

Today, think through your friendships. Is there a friend who may not accept you or has been repeatedly unkind to you? Ask God about this friendship.  

Scriptures: Psalms 56:8, Galatians 6:2, John 15:13

“What do I do now?” I asked my friend through tears. 

“Right now, we just sit in this, and let it be hard,” she said through tears. “We make space for it just to be hard.” 

I didn’t think just sitting in the grief was the next step to take. The kind of step where you just stay put. And let the tears fall. And feel all of the feels. All of the pain. All of the sadness. But she gave me the permission to not have to move. I called her and shared what felt like the hardest thing, and she let me just cry. 

She wasn’t afraid of my sadness. Of my grief. Of my tears. She actually held space for my pain. And she joined me there, with her own tears. Sometimes friendship tastes like salty drops of water coming down your own face on behalf of another’s pain. 

That day, I remembered that good friends make space for tears. Good friends don’t try to fix you when you don’t want to be fixed. They don’t rush you through the tunnel of emotions you must travel through to get to the other side. They let you move through them at your own pace, and they hold your hand as you walk.

There have been friends who have dropped what they are doing to come hug me and cry, like when we found out my son had Crohn’s Disease. I have had friends, too far away to travel, FaceTime me and let me cry. Other friends have come and cried on my couch and let me hug them in their pain.

Good friends allow all the emotions. They sit with you in the dark. They let you be. In today’s Scripture, the writer tells us God does the same. He sees our tears, keeps track of them even! He doesn’t turn his face away or prod us to get ourselves together. He has recorded our pain, our fears, our grief, our sadness, and our anxieties. He writes them down and is with us in them. And when we have the chance to be with someone in their tears, we are the hands and feet of Jesus to another. We participate in the ministry of healing and of being an ambassador on behalf of our King to another. 

Don’t miss those sweet times. Be ready. Be available. Be willing. And also be ready to allow others into your pain. A friend is an extension of God himself to us. Let’s participate in this beautiful gift. 

Today, thank God for the friends who have sat with you and made space for your pain. What a gift. Ask God to show you when and how to make space for your friends’ tears.

Scriptures: 2 Corinthians 9:8, Proverbs 13:20, Psalms 43:3

I felt the deadline looming for my manuscript. It loomed on top of my kids’ schedules: a recital, a soccer tournament, a preschool graduation. It hovered over the state of my fridge; it was pancake mix and pickles for dinner if I didn’t make it to the grocery store. And it floated above sixty-seven unchecked emails reminding me I was apparently in high demand at work. 

So, of course, I texted a friend about my deadline and my anxiety. She read the text and carefully and graciously chose some truth to text back. 

“Let go of that anxiety and stress I hear in your text because God wants to provide for you, Amy. He has before, and he will again. You can rest that this will get done because you have time and time again seen him share the load—take the load—and provide the words and time. He’s got this, too.”

I needed a friend to see what I couldn’t. The truth. So often we look at the details all over the landscape—the millions of trees. And we miss the forest. Those overarching truths that cover us and provide shade and security and keep us grounded. 

She told me: God will provide for you. 

Isn’t that how our fears get started? Will God provide for me? Should I just make this happen? Can I trust God to provide? 

Yes. I can trust God to provide.

I needed to hear it from an outside voice because my inner voice was feeding me fear. 

I needed the truth that God will give the grace for all good works. He will help me finish the manuscript and will take me through the crazy schedule. He will help me see what is truly important and not only what is urgent. God has provided for me before, and he will again. 

Let’s be a friend who graciously gives the truth, at the right time, of who God is. Let’s pray for wisdom in our friendships. Let’s ask God to hear him and give whatever gift our friends need. It could be the gift of silence until a friend can hear truth. Or it could be the gift of truth because the lies have gotten too loud. We need grace and truth from our friends. We need to point one another to the rich character of God in our often-impoverished view of him. 

When my friend sent that text, she took me by the hand and walked me to the King. And reminded me who he was: a good and generous God. 

Today, thank God for those friends in your life who point you toward God. If you don’t have a friend like that, ask him for one! He loves to give good gifts. 

Scriptures: Psalms 23:4, 1 Peter 4:8, Proverbs 3:5-6

I have had many women comment on how they long for close friendships like they see in others’ lives. Making deep friendships after your early twenties can be hard. The pool of friendship opportunities has shrunk. No longer do teams or dorms provide easy access to tons of people. And it’s hard to know where to start.

Start in the trenches.

Some of my closest friendships have emerged because we have walked through the same trenches together, the same valleys. We noticed one another doing similar hard things, and we bravely moved toward each other. And fifteen years later, we are each other’s inner circle of support. 

After I had my first child, I knew I was in over my head. I needed other friends who were in the same boat, with the same questions, and had the same difficulties. 

Two friends of mine also had babies that year, and we started to get together and share the motherhood load together. One was a working mom, another a stay-at-home mom. But it didn’t matter what side of the vaccine or schooling or working mommy wars we landed on, we stayed open to one another in the common hard task of raising children in the middle of a chaotic world. 

Are there women you keep running into because you have lives that overlap? Maybe at the office down from yours in your workplace? Or at the library with your kids about the same age? Or down the street as you get your mail around the same time? Or you keep commenting on the same social media posts?

Maybe this person is also in your same trench and could use a friend who can relate. I am confident that starting a conversation can lead to starting a friendship. And that friendship just could become your deepest source of support for many years to come.

Start with small talk. And then make an invite. Invite her to something you have in common: “We should run together!” See how the invites add up to real friendship. You can do this.

Today, pray, “God, help me to start small with making deep friendships, one step at a time. Show me where to step out in faith. Help me to make deep, lifelong, lasting friendships”

Scriptures: John 15:15, 1 John 4:18, Isaiah 12:2

“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.” John 15:15 (NIV)

Forty years of friendship-making have given me a pretty decent grid on healthy expectations for a friendship. I’ve been in toxic friendships, friendships since the third grade (still going!), neighborly friendships, and work friendships. I’ve made major mistakes in friendships and had to rebuild trust again; I’ve let go of friendships because they were unhealthy. 

Some healthy expectations for friendships include being treated with respect, getting to know each other at a comfortable pace for both of you, enjoying one another, and laughing easily. 

Some unhealthy expectations I have encountered are sharing very deep and personal things too quickly, expecting your friend to drop her life to tend to yours no matter what, criticizing, and judging your choices. 

One thing I know: having good boundaries is vital to having good friendships. Boundaries help us know what is ours and what is not. And we can decide when and where we want to open up our fence door and let others in. 

The greatest grace in having healthy expectations is that we can expect God to take care of us as we move toward other human beings. We are sinful and so are our friends. We will hurt one another, and we will need to rebuild trust. We will fail one another, and we will have to apologize. 

But God is perfect, loves perfectly, and will take care of us. He is always there for us at every single moment. Today’s Scripture reminds us that Jesus calls us his friend because he has revealed who the Father is to us. We know God the Father, and we are welcomed into friendship with God. He dropped the comforts of heaven to come to us; he continues to drop everything to be here for us now. We can trust him to be our friend who has our best possible interests in mind. 

“God, show me how to be a healthy friend and how to have healthy friendships. Show me where I need to set good boundaries. Thank you that, no matter what, you are with me and my friends.”