Friendship, Life and Risks.

Yesterday’s post at She Seeks really had my heart all day.

Last night I was at my daughter’s girl scout meeting and someone walked past me and she had a very familiar smell. She smelled like an old friend who I miss very much. And for a moment, tears began to swell up because sometimes, that’s all it takes to trigger a memory is –a smell.

Over the past year and a half we have moved to a new side of town, changed church’s, switched schools and basically started over with life. It’s been hard [for all of us]. It’s been one of those seasons of life where I have had to come to terms with days of loneliness. Its amazing to me how you can be surrounded by people all day and still feel…empty. Just because I stay busy, doesn’t mean I don’t miss many relationships I used to have.

Many of the relationships we have had over the past ten years have moved into one of those seasons that I talked about on She Seeks yesterday. Those seasons that for sometimes many reasons, you just start to grow apart. You make plans to meet, they get cancelled. You mean to call, but you don’t. The emails and the text messages stop, then days down the road you find yourself missing those people…very much. There wasn’t any conflict or disagreements…just life alone, interrupts many relationships. Seems like relationships that end over a conflict are easier to let-go of than ones where you simply grow apart.

And you wonder as you struggle to meet to new people and grow new relationships if there will ever be another friend like “that one”?

Sometimes, I wonder if its worth taking the risk again. Is it worth it to be vulnerable again, to share who I really am and to allow people to see past the surface of “Nicki”?

And then, I think about the risk that God takes with me every-single-day. The things that He entrusts me with…He knows that sometimes I feel like the most unlikely girl possible for Him to choose. Yet–He’s always willing to risk it with me. He knows that at any moment I could fail, stumble and fall. He knows all my quirks and all the things that make me tick.

He knows it all. And still…calls us friend? [John 15:15]

But, God is not my girlfriend or my buddy.

I looked up the definition of friend and it said this: a person attached to another by feelings of affection or personal regard.

The idea that God is our friend comes from this deep place of personal regard that He has for us. He scans this world daily gazing into our lives, smiling at the things we do, laughing at the things we laugh at and guiding us when needed. The familiarity of His touch wanders through our daily lives triggering memories of His faithfulness to us.

Yes–His friendship with us goes much deeper than any relationship we will ever have. But there’s a lot I can gain from the way God views to me –to the way I view this world and friendships around me.

If God’s willing to risk it with me, shouldn’t I be willing to risk it with others?

Looking to God, thinking past myself and being willing to take the risk. I believe that’s what its about. I crave familiarity but maybe God really only wants the constant familiar to be Him?

Seasons come and seasons go. True. But our hearts are still there. And God knows this, He wants to put people in our lives to encourage us, build us up and to do life with. Pray, Seek, Trust and take the risk. Great relationships await us all around. But be willing to look in the most unlikely places.

My Pastor put this quote on twitter last night, and I think it’s a great way to wrap up this post:

Most people you dislike aren’t as bad as you think. Most people you admire aren’t as good as you think. Look to Jesus.