“Friendship is acting out God’s love for people in tangible ways. We are made to represent the love of God in each other’s lives, so that each person we walk through life with has a more profound sense of God’s love for them. Friendship is an opportunity to act on God’s behalf in the lives of people that we’re close to, reminding each one who God is. When we do the hard, intimate work of friendship, we bring a little more divine into daily life. We get to remind one another about the bigger, more beautiful picture that we can’t always see from where we are.
True friendship is a sacred thing, important thing, and it happens when we drop down into that deeper level of who we are, when we cross over into the broken, fragile parts of ourselves. We have to give something up in order to get friendship like that. We have to give up our need to be perceived as perfect. We have to give up our ability to control what people think of us. We have to overcome the fear that when they see the depths of who we are, they’ll leave. But what we give up is nothing in comparison to what this kind of friendship gives to us. Friendship is about risk. Love is about risk. If we can control it and manage it and manufacture it, then it’s something else, but if it’s really love, really friendship, it’s a little scary around the edges.”
Shauna Niequist
theconnectblog.wordpress.com 