The gift of good friends

A friend is entering the Search and Call system (our denominational system for matching churches and pastors). He asked me to be a reference and after I completed the questions, I called him and shared my answers.

He said it was uncanny how similar my answers to questions about him and his answers to questions about him actually were. I said that perhaps that's because we know each other pretty well. He said something like, "No, I think it's more than that."

And he's right. It is more than that. We do indeed know each other well, but this friend and another dear one and I have a friendship that goes beyond the basic "knowing each other." We met up in seminary and shared a little corner of C building. We wrote notes to each other in class, ate dinner as cheaply as we could find it, drove miles to see each other's big events, borrowed cars, rescued each other, staged interventions on another's behalf... We laughed and cried, fussed and fought, struggled and grew and we did it together.

The extraordinary thing is that we're still doing it together. We've talked about how we don't know if other seminary friends are still friends like we are. We are friends who talk to each other frequently and by that I mean, sometimes several times a week. We are godparents to each other's children. We are each other's most honest critics and staunchest supporters. We laugh and cry, fuss and fight, struggle and grow, move forward, move back, come in, come out... and we do it together.

He's right. It is more than the fact that we know each other. Perhaps it's that we allow the other to know us so well. I personally think it's that God saw that those three not only needed each other, but that by needing and knowing each other they were going to understand more about God's love and grace than they ever thought possible by themselves. It's that we're blessed. Together.