I don’t know you. I don’t know your face or your name or the things that make your heart beat faster in excitement. I don’t know your heartache or your joys. But I consider you a friend. Not the kind that you shyly wave at in the grocery store, but the kind who wildly cheers you on as you daily make decisions that chart the course of your life. The reason I consider us friends, despite our lack of knowledge of one another, is quite simply because I need your friendship as I believe you need mine.
There is this beautiful thing about being a God-fearing woman. Oh there are many things that God has placed inside of our hearts that make us His daughters, uniquely and intricately formed in His perfect image. But of all these things, I am most grateful for this… we need each other.
That is not a profound truth meant to astound you with my brilliance, but rather to remind you of the beauty with which God created us. He created us for friendship. Our Heavenly Father, bound in a mysterious but incredible trinity with Jesus our Savior and the Holy Spirit our Comforter, made us to live in life-giving, life-sustaining relationships.
If you are anything like me, maybe you too sometimes forget this simple but oh so important truth. It’s not that I think I am superwoman, capable of taking on the world with the supreme powers God has given me. But while caught up in the Monday to Sunday cycles of time and energy I can forget the cry of my soul that screams for companionship. It’s easy to ignore the voice in my heart that just wants to be shared with another trusted heart, perhaps over a highly caffeinated beverage.
The truth is… I need you. I need you in grace and mercy and truth to hold me accountable to the woman of God I desire to be. I need you to share in my joy and walk beside me in my times of wounded tears. I need you to remind me when life becomes heavy that there is a God who not only offers to carry my burdens, but who has already taken them from me. I need you to believe for me when my faith cannot overwhelm my doubts.
And I believe you need me too. The way David needed Jonathan and Timothy needed Paul. Because we all need people in our corner who will just be there. That place of “there” where hearts are open to listen, to love and to encourage each other towards God’s best for our lives.
So friend, although we are divided by computer screen and possibly by miles and years, I am praying for you and standing in your corner, wildly cheering you on as you fiercely set out in this day to live God’s calling and purpose. And I am encouraging you, to be led by our wonderful God toward a soul crying out for the accompaniment of your heart and your love. She needs you. Your beauty, your confidence, your wisdom, your laughter, your tears, are designed by our Lord to be shared… with friends.
Sincerely, a friend.
Philippians 1:3-11
I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. It is right for me to feel this way about all of you, since I have you in my heart and, whether I am in chains or defending and confirming the gospel, all of you share in God’s grace with me. God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus. And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God.
Written by: Tricia Gibb
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