Finding Faith ... in being intentional about making friendships a priority

Don’t skate on your friendships.

Oh, trust me, I too am of the age where for the past few decades raising kids, paying a mortgage and pursuing a career always took precedence in my life. And now staring the age of 50 right in the eyes, it’s easy to see that I haven’t tended to my friendships the way one should.

But I am trying to make amends. 

On Sunday, I returned to my hometown to join my brother in placing flowers on our Mom’s grave. On the way there, my mind wrestled with whether or not I should give Tim a call.

For no reason, other than to give myself an excuse not to call, I argued with myself that I shouldn’t bother him on a holiday weekend, that I’d given him no notice or that I’d be selfishly pulling him away from his family.

Once I silenced the voice in my head and made the call, my heart lifted. Tim was available, and excited to get together! … My own self-doubt didn’t win this time! Thank you Holy Spirit! 

Tim, one of my best friends from high school and I have reconnected in recent years, and we’re trying to make up for lost time.

We both were there for each other when our parents recently passed. First his dad, then my mom and then his mom; all in short succession. The deaths of our loved ones felt all the more poignant now that we both are only middle aged and are without our parents. Not a bond one necessarily desires, but Tim and I have it nonetheless.

But this isn’t a friendship reborn in grief only. … No, not at all! … We don’t just talk during life’s curve balls because we’re also talking about faith, and how to live it out in a strange age that seems to call for one to take sides on almost everything.

And we spend a lot of time talking about lighter topics such as kids and sports and old high school times and making the effort to do more together. Not a simple feat, considering we both are still in the throes of the busy decades: Child-rearing and working.

The key, though, and why this is working, is that we’re being intentional about it all. No more letting 20 years slip by on accident.

But Tim isn’t the only friendship that I’m trying to better about tending to. I have other friendships that stretch back 30 years to college and my first professional newspaper gigs that I’m being more intentional about too.

And then there were friends made along the way in other stops that come with a vagabond newspaper career. Not saying that I’ve gotten around to reaching out to everyone yet, but life is a work in progress after all, isn’t it?

More importantly though is that it’s become a renewed focus in my life during an age when I find that I need more friends in my life. The truth is that in recent months, as I stepped back from a number of obligations, I finally realized the void of friendship in my life. And I vowed to rectify that.

Folks, it’s no secret that we are a lonely and isolated society. The recent pandemic only exacerbated a trend that started taking place decades ago. But the fact is that we have fewer friendships into our adulthood than we’ve ever had, and it’s having a calamitous effect on us.

Just last year, the U.S. surgeon general declared loneliness a public health crisis, stating that loneliness was as dangerous as daily smoking. … Now if that’s not motivating, then I don’t know what is!

I wrote this paragraph about seven months ago: “We cling to the myth of the “rugged individualist” at our own peril. We raise young people to believe that “I” is more important than “we,” and then we wonder why adults have fewer friends, a small social safety net and so much anxiety.”

But this year I vow to improve my existing friendships and be intentional about them. Just in the small efforts I’ve made with my longest and dearest friends from the past 30 years I can see the positive effect on my life.

I pray the same for you: Call your friends; be intentional about time with them, and make friendship a priority in your life.

After all, God didn’t create us to be solitary creatures. God created us to be in relationship with each other as much as we are to be in relationship with God.

So, what’s your friendship plan for this week? How are you going to connect with someone, and who with? Here’s my challenge: Be intentional about it, and create a plan!

And here’s a grateful tip o’ the cap to Tim who was willing to get together on short notice! … My friend, I left with a smiling heart! Thank you!