A Letter to My Lonely and Younger Self

I have a vivid memory of lying in bed, closing a book, and bawling my eyes out.  I don’t remember the exact date when this happened, and I don’t remember if the book was Jennie Allen’s Find Your People or Justin Whitmel Earley’s Made for People, but I can easily remember the overwhelming feeling of loneliness and despair.  In the moment, I was believing the enemy’s lie that God is not good and he would never give me the life-giving friendships described in these books.

In the years since those tears covered my pillow, I have seen the Lord’s faithfulness in ways I could not have imagined. I know experience is the best teacher, but I’ve attempted to capture the words of encouragement I would offer younger versions of myself.  Many of these words are taken straight out of the pages penned by Allen and Earley, and my paraphrases are just a taste of the richness their books have to offer on the topic of friendship. Perhaps these words of encouragement might offer hope to someone desperate to be known and loved. Perhaps they might encourage us to be Christ followers who are looking to befriend others and love like Jesus. Without a doubt, they remind me to thank the Lord for his goodness and the gift of friendship.

Dear lonely, younger self,

God hears your prayer for authentic friendship rooted in Him and desires to give you this gift.  Do you know the first thing God said was “not good”? It happens before the fall, before the serpent is on the scene.  In Genesis 2:18, God said, “it is not good that the man should be alone.” Loneliness is the first thing God says is “not good.”  In the same way that the Lord was faithful to Adam, faithful to you to bring you to your loving husband, faithful to provide you friends in previous seasons, He will establish friendships perfectly suited for what life looks like now.

God made you for people; He knows you will experience Him even more fully in community with others.  You have a vision for what this life-giving community could look like, but God’s vision is better than you can even imagine.  You sometimes find yourself jealous of those who share about having a rich group of life-long friends that know the messy truths about each other, yet stick together in the hard times and the celebrations.  You don’t see a way, friendships take time after all, but God is making a way in His perfect timing.  When the Lord has you all to himself, yield to the sanctifying work in your life that you might be prepared to be the friend others need.

You are focused on the times when you tried - you made the effort, you took the initiative, you were willing to be awkward - but it still did not result in meaningful friendship.  You are hung up on the friendship you still treasure but is no longer a regular rhythm in your life. Geography, life-stages, and changes in priorities have moved some sweet friendships into the past, but you do not have to feel shame or guilt or consider these friendships a failure.  Some friendships only last for a season, and some friendships will continue to bless you with only quarterly touchpoints. However, I promise God wants you to have friends in close proximity with whom you do life together.

Every day you encounter so many people who feel lonely just like you, so be on the look out for who you can befriend.  You can’t have what you are not willing to become.  Keep making yourself available to the Lord and to others, serve the Lord and others with humility, and be willing to live without secrets as you confess to the Lord and to your closest friends the hard, messy truth.

The enemy wants us to believe that our nastiest sins prevent us from being loved.  The truth of grace is that when we confess our sins, we become closer to one another and to God.  Honesty about our flaws is not the barrier to relationship; it is the path to deeper friendship.  You need discernment. The Lord is not asking you to broadcast your struggles to the world.  Pray for an intimate few who will be the ones to listen and speak the truth in love.  Tim Keller has a famous quote about marriage that applies to friendship too, “to be loved but not known is comforting but superficial.  To be known and not loved is our greatest fear.  But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God.  It is what we need more than anything.  It liberates us from pretense, humbles us out of our self-righteousness, and fortifies us for any difficulty life can throw at us.”

It takes time to be known and time to build trust with a friend.  A fight for friendship is a fight for time.  You will never drift into life-giving relationships. Schedule time with friends; don’t view this time as a luxury but rather a necessity.  Commit to rhythms of friendship whether it is weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, or quarterly. Mutually agree to make the pivot from pleasantries and catching up to telling the truth about your life.  You must fight for intimate friendships that consistently hold you accountable and share a common pursuit of the Lord, but the fight will be worth it.

Speaking of fighting, I know you will try to avoid conflict at all costs.  You would rather keep people at a distance than risk them knowing you.  If they don’t know you, they won’t see how bad you are, and you won’t have to seek forgiveness.  Conversely, if they aren’t too close, they can’t hurt you, and you will never need to forgive.  You are trying to control or mitigate inevitable failure.  You should expect to be hurt by your friends because to be friends with sinners is your only option.  However, the privilege of forgiveness is we get to experience just a glimpse of what Jesus experienced on the cross.  Keller writes, “He was in agony, and He looked down on us - denying Him, abandoning Him, and betraying Him - and in the greatest act of love in history, He STAYED.”  You have to practice forgiveness.  You have to acknowledge you were hurt. You have to bear the burden of the pain like Christ.  You have to be willing to stay.  The beauty of going into friendship with a realistic view of conflict is that “grace is a much sturdier foundation than perfection.”  You have to be willing to have the critical conversations and repair the ruptures, but when you do, you will find the friendship to be stronger and more rooted.

Even as you find your people and start to spend time with them, you are going to fall into the trap of sharing your hard things as a testimony after they are over rather than utilizing your friends as you go through the trial.  Be willing to go first.  Share the thing that seems too much to share and watch how that helps the other person connect with you and share their own hard truths.  

Take everything to the Lord in prayer.  The greatest gift you can give your friends is not a listening ear or reactions based on what you think.  Although you want to be quick to listen and intentional to share how what you heard makes you feel, you must continually ask the Holy Spirit to help you point your friend back to Jesus and God’s Word.  Hebrews 3:13 reminds us that encouragement keeps us from being hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.  Pray scriptures into your friend’s daily struggles and keep track of all the ways the Lord faithfully answers prayers for your friend.

When your friendships are helping you fulfill your purpose and pushing you to love God and others better, you better believe that the enemy is going to want to do everything in his power to destroy them.  It is for this reason that the one prayer Jesus prayed specifically for you and me before going to the cross was for unity. “I am praying not only for these disciples but also for all who will ever believe in me through their message…I am in them and you are in me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me” (John 17:20,23 NLT). Jesus knows that His Church needs oneness that can only come from the power of the Holy Spirit, but each friendship between believers contributes to building that unity.  Your God ordained friendships are not just to make you feel better but to take the hope of the Kingdom of God to the world. Fix your eyes on Jesus; run your race; and thank Him for the friends who are encouraging you along the way.

Blessings,

Your wiser older self.

P.S. The pairings for Designed for Discipleship are purposeful.

P.S.S. The seat you choose at Bible study is not a coincidence.

P.S.S.S That mom who starts on the same day as you at Fit4Moms who lives in a different city and goes to a different church will soon be a mile walk from your front door.