Beauty on the Backroads

Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns

Friendship

Stories of Friendship: The ties you forget are there

This week’s Stories of Friendship post is a bit different than previous weeks. And a day later than normal. To see previous posts, check out last week’s, which contains links to all the posts in this series. If you’re interested in sharing a post about a friend who is important to you, send me a message.

This week, instead of focusing on one friend who has had an impact on me, I want to tell you what I learned about friendship this week.

On Monday, I received word from a friend and former co-worker that a colleague of ours had a severe reaction to something that caused her to stop breathing and be hospitalized. Her condition was serious and over the next several days, we exchanged dozens of messages with updates on her condition. During those days, I was also in contact with many of my former work colleagues, letting them know her status.

It’s been more than seven years since I worked at that company, and many of the people I keep up with marginally on Facebook. I haven’t seen most of them in seven years.

But instantly, we were a team again. Praying. Exchanging information. Connected even though we are literally scattered across the country, from California to Pennsylvania, Wisconsin to Texas. All of us were joined in mutual concern for our friend and colleague.

Though we’re not connected by a common workplace anymore, those years we spent working together solidified our bond. I mean, when you spend 8-10 hours a day, 5-6 days a week, in good times and bad, with co-workers, they really become more like family. And for me, a 20-something trying to find her way in the world, those co-workers were some of my first adult friends. And I’m sorry that tragedy has brought us back in touch with each other, but it reminded me that friendship comes in a variety of forms and just because bonds are stretched doesn’t mean they are broken.

So, today, as we continue talking about friendship, I ask you to pray for our friend, Marla. She is bold and outspoken, funny in all the best ways (I still smile thinking about things she said all those years ago), a fighter and survivor with a smile that fills a room. She is playful and unpredictable. There were times she scared me a little as I walked by her desk because she is fiercely loyal to her people and her beliefs and you don’t want to cross her.

Even if she was none of those things, I’d still ask for your prayers for her. We are waiting and watching and hoping for her recovery from this reaction.

Thank you for your prayers.

Stories of Friendship: The one who encouraged me

On Fridays, I’ve been telling you stories of meaningful friendships. You can read past posts about the friend who got me through hard times, the friend who takes me as I am, and the friends who’ve been on a journey with us across states. And you can read this guest post about a friend who was right next door. Maybe you have a story to tell too? Send it to me at lmbartelt (at) gmail (dot) com, along with a picture, if you have one, and I’ll post it here on an upcoming Friday.

tbt Lisa & Nikki

This is my favorite picture of Nikki and me, taken years ago when we were counselors for a week at Rock River Bible Camp. I love it because it is SO not our personalities. At least, not obviously. We’re the quiet introvert types. I mean, when this picture was taken, Nikki was a librarian and I was a journalist. Writer. Librarian. Not exactly the roles that bring to mind fun-loving party types.

But to me, this photo describes our relationship.

Nikki and I became friends at a time when we both needed a friend. We were post-college, career women in our 20s without boyfriends or husbands or children like so many of the people we knew. We’d both gone away to college and returned to our hometown area, attended the same church and were trying to figure out what exactly God had in store for people like us. (That’s what I was trying to figure out anyway.)

We started hanging out with other people our age at the church, half of whom Nikki was related to. I was sort of an outsider having not grown up in that church, but they all accepted me, Nikki included, and somewhere along the hanging out, she and I got to be really good friends.

After my second roommate moved out, she and I started talking about the possibility of living together. I remember this conversation because the conditions were not ideal. At the time, I lived in the smaller half of a house in town and she lived with her parents. To make this roommate thing worked, we decided we’d need to move to the larger half of the house and Nikki would need a raise of a certain amount at work. Both seemed a bit impossible on our meager salaries, but God surprised us both and made it happen.

Living with Nikki (I can’t remember now if it was years or just a year–I’m old and my memory isn’t what it used to be) was one of the best times of my life. Sure, we had bumps along the way. I was a bit immature and didn’t know that friends could disagree and still be friends. We didn’t always agree on things, but I mostly remember it as a time of deep friendship. And I think where individually we might not have been brave enough to do certain things, together, we spurred one another on.

Nikki traveled to Ohio with me for a friend’s wedding, and we stopped to visit an island along the way. We made our half-house a welcome place for people to gather and weekly hosted our friends for food and hanging out and looooong nights of Trivial Pursuit. We watched Anne of Green Gables and Pride & Prejudice and swooned over these love stories.

And as our own love stories began, we confided in each other our deepest feelings. I remember the day she told me about her growing feelings for the man she would marry. And the day I confessed that I was falling for Phil. We encouraged each other in those relationships. It was her idea that I dress as Phil one year for Halloween. (Sorry, I’m not sure where those pictures are!) She gave me this plaque as a reminder of our friendship. I still display it prominently next to a poem she wrote me about our friendship. best friends

Our lives have us in two different states right now, but she is one of the friends I most want to spend time with when we’re in the same state, even when it’s almost impossible to make it happen. Not long ago, I purposed to meet her for lunch and hang out for an afternoon so she could know the state of things in our marriage. It was the kind of conversation I wanted to have in person. And though I was afraid our friendship had changed because we’d been apart and things had changed so much for me, I was grateful to discover that things had changed for both of us, but our friendship remained. (I am now plotting a double date night for us when we’re home next. This is your fair warning.)

Not all friendships stand the tests of time and distance, but I’m grateful this one has.

Nikki is still an encouragement to me, and I’m blessed to call her “friend.”