Beauty on the Backroads

Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns

friends

Stories of Friendship: The one who takes me as I am

A few weeks ago, we started talking about friendship here, and today’s post is another installment. Do you have a story of friendship you’d like to share? Send me a few paragraphs and a photo to lmbartelt (at) gmail (dot) com and I’ll post it on a Friday. Check out the previous posts in the series about my friend Dawn and about Lisa Betz’s friend Carol.

Our husbands were friends first, a side effect of seminary classes, but they bonded like brothers even to the point that people would ask if they were brothers. At the time, they both sported longish hair and beards and had similar builds. I knew of Beth but had not met her until their family temporarily moved in down the street from us. It was another of those relationships where we were online friends before we met in person but clicked the more time we spent together.

From the start, Beth made me comfortable with who I am. She is an authentic person who does not pretend to have it all together or claim to be better than anyone else. She puts me at ease. With her, I can spout all my frustrations, laugh at things I think I shouldn’t find funny, share dreams and fears and struggles. I remember the day I told her about our marriage struggles. How we hit rock bottom and were clawing our way back up. She cried with me and asked probing questions (the good kind). But the thing I remember most is how she spoke hope to me. She believed this would not be the end for us. And she continues to see beyond circumstances to what could be.friends at the beach

Beth is fun and genuine and despite what she might think, one of the most beautiful people I know. She has a heart that beats wild for Jesus and His people. She is a fighter for what’s right and just. She loves coffee and her husband and her kids and when I have been with her, I am refreshed.

This summer, our families vacationed together at the beach–a move that could have ruined all the friendships. But, thanks be to God, we are better friends for having done it.

Hers is one of many treasured friendships I have, and I can hardly believe we’ve only been friends for a couple of years.

(And I hope we are still friends after I post this picture of us at the beach. We were kid-free that day and loving it!)

If I had a sister, I would want her to be like Beth.

Do you have a friend like that? Share your story with us!

Stories of Friendship: The one who got me through the hard times

I had lunch with my friend Dawn yesterday, and while lunching with a friend is not necessarily the kind of earth-shaking action one writes about, our time of catching up got me thinking about friendship.

Actually, I’ve been thinking about it a lot. Maybe because friends haven’t always come easy to me and now I’m beyond grateful for the people in my life I call friends. I’ve written before about a few of those friends. But I want to tell you more. And I want you to tell me your stories of friendship. (See the end of this post for details about how you can do that.) Because I don’t know about you, but I often take my friends for granted. I don’t always say how much they mean to me, and with most of those friends, I don’t have to say it. We just know it. Still, I’m a fan of telling the people you care about that you care about them.

I’m aiming to leave no words unsaid.

So, back to my friend Dawn. (I’d show you a picture of us together but I don’t think we have one. That might be a thing I need to change. Pictures of me with the people I care about.)

Just before my son was born, I tried to start a moms group in the little town we lived in because I was desperate for friends. We’d lived there for two years and I didn’t really have anyone to talk to or hang out with. Part of this was my own introversion. Part of it was being the stay-at-home mother to a little one in a community where most moms worked. The moms group never really took off, but I had posted a sign for it at the seminary where my husband was taking classes and kind of forgot about it.

Months later, after Corban came into our lives, I got an e-mail from Dawn. She’d seen my flyer. They’d just moved to the area. Her husband had just started seminary. And she wanted to know more about the group. We corresponded by e-mail a few times because the group was no more and I was still adjusting to having two kids in the house. I looked forward to her e-mails. I liked her immediately, and we lived in the same town but it took us a few weeks to arrange a meeting. I was nervous about meeting her in person because what if I didn’t like her anymore? (It’s a good thing I never tried online dating. I have this fear about anyone I know mostly from the Internet whom I have the chance to meet in person. Pretty good track record so far!)

We met briefly and it was a little awkward because I’m much more comfortable with written words than spoken ones. But then we kept getting together. We had kids that were similarly aged, and we both needed another adult to keep us sane through the days of seminary classes and financial insecurities and parenting troubles.

I had considered the moms group a failed attempt at ministry, but when I look back on it, I sense it was divinely inspired so that I could know Dawn. Our friendship began about six months before my husband confessed his infidelity, and I truly don’t know what we would have done without Dawn and her family. Emotional support. Babysitting while we went to counseling. Honest sharing. They were lifelines for us.

There are days I consider our time in Pennsylvania and what our lives would be like if we’d never moved here, and I can’t measure how different my life would be without some of the friends I might never have met.

Dawn is one of those friends I feel like knows me well enough that our friendship could be twice as old as it is. We’ve laughed together, gone out to movies and dinner. She took me to get my first pedicure. We’ve traded babysitting. We’ve shared our resources. We’ve walked through hard times. I smile when I think of Dawn because she is extroverted where I am introverted but she has shown me what it is to break the rules, to passionately defend your beliefs, to stand up for the poor and needy, to fight for justice.

She makes me brave.

My life is better because Dawn and I are friends. That’s the best kind of friend, right?

So, tell me about your friends. I have more stories to share about other friends, and I will do that occasionally, here. But I’d like to share this space with you. Send me a paragraph or two about a friend you can’t imagine not having in your life, or a friend who has been with you through thick and thin, or a friend you didn’t expect to have. If you have a photo, I’ll post it, too. E-mail me at lmbartelt {at} gmail {dot} com. Let’s celebrate friends together!