Friendfulness

Ahh the warmth of friendship. The word to describe my weekend is friendful, a word I am coining. It's hard to describe the feeling of friendship... the companionship, the sharing of life's joys and sorrows, the smiles, the hugs, the conversations, the emotions. There is love, there is joy, there is also struggle. Friendship is enduring the low times as well as celebrating the highs.

It's great to meet new people with whom you share a common faith, a common bond, a common spirit. You get a sense that you've known them forever. There's a level of familiarity and comfort. These are some of the feelings I experienced this weekend.

I had a hard 5 days of work Tuesday through Saturday, and was exhausted by the time I got off work on Saturday. I had a Give Thanks Banquet to attend with my sunday school group Saturday night, so I pretty much had to get home and quickly get cleaned up and dressed up and leave right away for the banquet. During the day, I'd made a few phone calls to help tie up loose ends as I was one of the event planners. As the emcee, I had the program to worry about, and we planners were hoping that everything would turn out like we'd planned. It did, thanks be to God, but the thoughts were banging around inside my head every time I went up to the podium.

But when we started our altar of praise to God, as people took turns sharing personal stories of what they were thankful for, all my worries became secondary. At first, a few of us were worried that there was too much silence in between speakers, that we needed music. Then when we got some music going, I worried that it was still too quiet. But about 3 stories later, I forgot about the music as people shared stories of answered prayer, the way God had worked in their lives the last year, how they ended up where they were today, how God used someone in their lives to help them grow spiritually. I had one of those moments where I felt God's presence, when everything becomes still, a feeling of peace. I stopped worrying about the night, God was in control.

I heard testimonies from people I hadn't met yet, but they were as moving as those from those I've known since I moved here 21 months ago. After the banquet and time of thanks, which lasted 45 minutes longer than we planned (see, who cares what we planned), about one third of the attendees decided to go bowling. That's where the feeling of friendship grew. I met some of those folks I hadn't formally met before, and I got to know some others I'd recently met, and so on. We had a great night, taking 3 hours for the 14 of us to bowl two games. 1 a.m. came quickly, and we were some tired but joyful people.

Then today, I believe all 14 were at Sunday school and church, as we continued our weekend of worship together. Tiredness and all. We spoke about slavery in sunday school. The topic made me think of how we were once slaves to sin, but now we are free to live for God. I need to be a servant/slave to righteousness. I believe part of that is being a servant to friendliness. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. It's nice to feel friendful.