Friends: Don't take yours for granted!

Just as lotions and fragrance give [the senses] delight, a sweet friendship refreshes the soul. —Proverbs 27:9, The Message

Today’s my best friend’s birthday. (Happy Birthday, Kristy!) And she’s very far away, so I can’t even see her on her birthday. That makes me sad, but I know her sweet husband will make her feel very special in my absence.

Friends are such a good gift from God. I don’t know about all of you, but if it weren’t for my friends, life would just seem pretty pointless. (I guess that points to the whole “made for community” thing we’ll discuss in an upcoming issue of ec. Get excited!) My friends are the ones who encourage me, hold me accountable, make me laugh, and with whom I can relax and have fun. What makes you grateful for your friends? Have you told them why you’re thankful for them lately?

It seems I’m more aware of how great my friendships are when my friends aren’t around, especially all my college friends who no longer live near me. I guess I kind of took them for granted back when we all lived within five feet of each other in college. But now that we’re all out on our own, spread across the United States, I really miss those girls! I miss the open, honest communication. The jokes. The common stress and annoyances with school, professors, and projects. The camaraderie as we dealt with that stress. The meals. The guys. The laughter about the bad dates with said guys.

I don’t know about you, but I hope that you’re not taking your friends for granted. Don’t miss an opportunity to tell your friends how grateful you are to have them in your life. You do not know what tomorrow holds, so take today (and every day!) to be the kind of friend you’d want to have. You won’t regret it, and neither will your friends.

Slave (to the day planner) no more!

If confession is good for the soul, then I hope to feel really great after writing this.

My name is Emily, and I am a type-A, planner-toting, time-conscious, detail-oriented micromanager. There, I said it. I’m pretty stingy with my time and often have a hard time finding room on my calendar for things that come up unexpectedly. When one of my free-spirit friends wants to go get coffee “sometime,” I demand to know when “sometime” is. I set up an appointment with this person, write it in my planner, and then hold them to it. That’s just one example. There is no telling how many people I’ve hurt by refusing to spend time with them in the name of maintaining my schedule.

My rigidity is not my favorite part of myself.

Last week, I threw it out the window.

It was surprisingly easy. A friend needed me. That was all it took. My best friend’s fiancé called to tell me that he was putting my best friend on a plane to Nashville from Denver so she could be with her dad, who was having emergency surgery. He wanted to know if I could pick her up at the airport and let her stay with me that night. He said she was too emotional to call me herself and too exhausted to drive the rest of the way to her hometown that night.

I didn’t even have to think about it. Of course I would take care of her once she arrived in Nashville. Moments earlier, I’d been planning out my one night of downtime for the week. But before I knew what I was doing, I was offering to take a vacation day the next day and drive her home (4.5 hours away). That ended up not being necessary (thanks to a very nice sales associate at Hertz who I’m pretty sure pulled some strings to get my friend a car), but I was completely willing to do it. Looking back, I’m a little shocked that I didn’t freeze up at the thought of doing something that wasn’t on my planner. But the thought of being protective of my time didn’t even cross my mind at the time because I knew what was important.

This past week put a lot of things into perspective for me. I learned several key lessons:
• Number one, when people you love need you, you will do whatever it takes to meet that need. (Which explains why parents go to the lengths they do sometimes.)
• Number two, a lot of the things I think are important aren’t. (Suddenly, the TV shows and manicure scheduled for last Monday night really didn’t matter.)
• Number three, I need to loosen up. I highly doubt that Jesus would have been chained to His calendar, had they had day planners back in His day. He knew what was expected of Him, yet was free to serve when the opportunity presented itself. It’s amazing the freedom that comes when you have your priorities straight.

(And I’m happy to report that my best friend’s dad will be just fine, and that I was able to spend a lot more time with her this past week than I have since she moved to Denver a year ago.)

So if you see yourself in my story, I hope you’ll loosen your grip on your planner and stop missing out on the parts of life that happen without warning. Enjoy your time! It’s God’s gift to you.