Well, Monday will be gone by the time I finish typing, editing and rereading this post, but I figure since I can’t think of a title and because I haven’t written in such a long time, I might as well stick with what’ll I’ve already got.  Right?

Every single day I talk to my sister.  It’s an addiction of sorts (but don’t tell her because she’d just sigh at me). She knows me better than anyone else, except my Love, but I can’t call him at work, let alone three times a day some days and I depend on her for encouragement.  I think we both feed off the other’s insanity and work really hard to ‘HELP’ the other.  Nah, she actually cuts me no slack, calls me names and doesn’t let me get away with ANYTHING.  I need her.  I think she needs me.  I’m pretty sure she does.  Guess I’ll call her tomorrow morning and ask her.  She’ll just sigh like she always does.  I just know it.  I’m rambling–that’s what she’d tell me and then she’d say, “For crying out loud, just get to the point!”  Yep, that’s what she’d say.

Honestly, though, we’ve had A LOT of conversations lately about friendships and how to navigate them.  For years, I’d meet someone and think to myself, “I want to get to know her.  She’s seems like a cool person.”  But then my next thought would be something like, “I’m too weird.  I say dumb things and why would SHE want to be my friend?”

There’s another side to this coin as well.  I’ve met people who I thought, “I cannot see us ever becoming friends.  You are way too high maintenance and I don’t have the emotional energy necessary to meet your needs and somehow get my own needs met, too.”  One should never think those thoughts.  They boomerang and slap one upside the head because they aren’t true when one discovers their own ‘high maintenance attitudes’!

Friendship is a hot griddle, filled with sizzlin’ butter and blueberry pancakes!  No hot griddle, no pancakes.  And if the griddle isn’t seasoned, it might ruin those pancakes…

 

OK, I know what you’re thinking, ‘cuz I KNOW what my sister would be thinking at this point, ‘Dear Lord, what are you trying to say!”

Friendships happen when there’s a mixture of heat and messy people. Good friendships, like delicious pancakes take work, practice, a great deal of patience and lots of butter…a soft heart toward the other.

 

 

My sister and I have been at this friendship thing our entire lives, and sure, we have many years of experiences to draw from.  But just because Karyn is my sister, doesn’t mean we were destined to be close friends. There have been times she’s said or done things that unintentionally hurt me, but because I know deep down she loved me, I chose to forgive her and prayed that someday I might share those things with her…Karyn, should you ever read this post, which I doubt you will because you only read my blog when I nag you, please know I’m up to date about telling you all the painful things you’ve ever done to hurt me.  So no worries.

Karyn lives far away.  Truthfully, we do better at our friendship when we live apart, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. We are sisters, for crying out loud, and we drive each other crazy.  But we haven’t always been apart.  Two different times we lived in the same vicinity and have learned to love each other. We’ve even lived under the same roof twice, once for an extended period of time and we survived… messy pancake batter sizzlin’ in the frying pan of friendship.  Yet, here we are, years later, calling the other every time we are driving somewhere, either her checking up on my moment(s) of insanity or me seeing what’s on her agenda for the day.

In order for a friendship to survive, there must be a willingness to get fried, so to speak; to open up your heart and receive from someone else what you do not have and an open mind to accept the people in your life that are reaching out to you or maybe even those that drive you crazy.

I mentioned to my sister that the only true search in ‘finding’ a friend is to pursue our friendship with the One that sticks closer than a brother because He knows who we need in our life and He will, in his time and for His purposes, cause us to cross paths.  Or in the case of my meeting a woman named Chris, I literally ‘fell’ into a relationship with her as I walked across the threshold of a writer’s retreat last November and landed in her arms.  Haven’t seen her since the retreat but we have texted, prayed and shared our lives off and on for almost a year now.  There was an immediate spirit to spirit connection with her and we still giggle about how God connected us.

There are friendships waiting to begin in all our lives and each one will be a little different, just like a pancake.  Messy to begin with, but in the end, delicious.

Now go get you a griddle and make some pancakes.