I'll be your best friend if you go to Oklahoma with me

I'm leaving my little East Texas hamlet tomorrow to head for Oklahoma City. That's where Jesus' sister (aka Beth Moore) will be speaking. I'm looking forward to it because I've heard her speak before, and she’s not only an awesome preacher (though she wouldn't call herself that, being a Baptist), she's also flat-dab funny. I mean fun-ee. There's nothing like having the Holy Spirit convict you about your orneriness one minute and the next laugh so hard snorting commences.

But – and no disrespect intended toward Jesus’ sister – I’m mostly excited because I’ll be spending the weekend with two of my oldest, dearest girlfriends in the world. We're staying two nights together in a decent hotel – no husbands, no children (though of course we love them and will miss them and think of them blah, blah, blah), no laundry or dishes or errands. Nada. Zilch. Zero. Just the three of us. (At this moment, the heavens are opening up, an angel choir is breaking into the “Hallelujah” chorus and a blinding shaft of light is engulfing me.)

Joye, Janet and I haven't been completely alone together in about 14 years. And the last time doesn't even count since Joye had a three-day-old baby who kept getting a wee-bit aggressive with the whole breast-feeding thing.

I’m blessed to have made some incredible friends in my life. I sometime categorize my friends by eras: the growing up era (k-12); the college era; the newspaper era; and the stay-at-home mom era. During each one of these periods, God has blessed me – and I mean BLESSED me – with incredible friendships. The funny thing is, I really don’t make friends that easily. When I say “friends” in this case, I mean FRIENDS. Not just stopping to talk in the grocery store friends or saying hello at church friends or sidling up to at a shower friends or even Bible study friends. Those kinds of relationships are relevant and important; having friends like that means you’re connected to your community. You care about people outside your own world. You’d help them in a time of need and do so earnestly.

But what I’m talking about here are the friends you can phone well after 10 p.m. if need be (something my mom was very definite about being a no-no), friends you can cry on and laugh with – simultaneously. Friends you trust your children with. Friends for whom you’d seriously sacrifice your time and energy, and know they’d do the same. Friends from whom you can seek wise counsel … then tell them their pants look ridiculous. And they still love you.

These types of friends I’ve never made easily. It’s not uncommon – and I HATE this – that after someone gets to know me well, he or she tell me, “This is funny now, but before I really got to know you, you intimidated me.”

I don’t know if it’s my height, my outspokenness (which I like to think is charming in a forward, Texas woman sort of way), the spider tattoo on my forehead … What?! But I get it a lot, and I’ve finally come to accept it the way I do my long toes and distaste for slapstick comedy and Zydeco music.

In that light, each dear friend I’ve made is someone I am convinced God connect me with as a gift. And with that gift comes a charge – that I stay in touch, that I reach out, that I connect with across time and distance – whether the distance be thousands of miles or two blocks.

God created us for community. Within that community we can thrive. Outside of it, we often whither, turn inward, become selfish.

Be sure you're connected.

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