When Shelly and I were in college, we would get ice cream from the University cafeteria, then go sit out on the steps of the Administration Building and talk about anything and everything. We told each other that any excuse to go on an ice cream binge was good enough; we just couldn’t do it alone.  That ritual required dual participation.

I wish everybody out there could experience the fun of having a college friend who just gets you. Our rooms on the southeast corner of campus were filled with so much laughter. Some nights we sat on our beds and solved the entire world’s problems with the maturity and wisdom of 19, while other nights we were on the floor, laughing so hard we could hardly breathe.

And then there were the nights we would stay up late and talk about the growing up that we were growing through…the hard stuff that you only share with certain kinds of people.

Listen, friends, if you don’t have a Shelly somewhere in your life, you need to go get one. A friend that you can both laugh and cry with is indispensable in life. Shelly and I saw each other through boyfriend break-ups, tough classes, crazy weeks crammed tight with concerts, drill team commitments, finals, convocations and the thousand and one other things that make up University life.

A true friend is such a gift and some pretty exceptional people have walked through my life at different stages. Each one has done the beautiful job of enriching. The people so close to my heart right now have proven that they’re in it for the long haul.  They have loved me through the tough places – and have listened with the patience and empathy that are definitive of true friendship.

A few years ago, one of them lent me a book that contained a quote by Brennan Manning. In writing about living authentic lives, Manning observed that we often try to present the fallacy of an outwardly perfect life. We want everyone to believe that we have it all together. The end result of a life lived like this is “that everyone admires us, and nobody knows us.”

I’ve been guilty of that.  I suppose most of us could say the same thing – and social media feeds that tendency like nothing I’ve ever seen before.  In any case, when life hits us square in the face with what we neither want nor understand (like it does for all of us if we’re honest enough to admit it), well, that’s when we realize that superficial friendships just don’t cut it anymore.

When I opened my home up to a regular meeting of a pretty sweet circle of friends in 2014, I had no idea how much the trust and love and honesty of those evenings would change me. It taught me so much about what “coming alongside” really means.

We are hesitant, and often fearful when it comes to letting people see the places in us that hurt. So we don’t. And in the process, we close ourselves off to the light and goodness and help of those who have been there before. This hesitancy can breed pride of the most isolating kind.

We need each other. We need each other a lot.

And of course I don’t mean that we share everything with everybody. We’ve all met people like that, haven’t we? After a conversation with them, you leave wishing they had learned discretion somewhere along the way.
I’m talking about a deeper kind of friendship here. We need good friends who know us well and who can help us grow well. I have so many sweet friends, and of these, there are a smaller number who really know me. They know the “real Michelle” because they’ve proven they can be trusted with the “real Michelle”. Some of these friends have been a part of my life for decades…Shelly and I still meet for ice cream and talk about anything and everything. Others I’ve known not nearly as long. But true friendship is never measured by time, is it? It’s measured instead by how we fill up that time, and how we choose to share ourselves with someone else. The good, the bad, and everything in between.  I love to be around these people…they make me laugh over coffee or conversations on my front porch. They sit on my couch and let me cry because I miss my mom. They share the fun of planning a trip or the excitement of happy news. They hold me accountable and pray with me. They nourish something in me and hopefully I do the same for them.

Authentic friendship grows instinctively for me; it’s deliberate and fun and sweet with an honesty that allows vulnerability… and the freedom to say what I mean and to hear the same from my friend. I’ve found it suddenly at times, or grown into it slowly at others.

I heard someone say once that it’s a dangerous thing to open your heart up to someone else…and let them look around inside.

But don’t you think it’s even more dangerous if you don’t?