The Gift of Friendship
It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year…
I hope you’re singing that song in your head, though you might disagree with the sentiment. Instead, it might be the most expensive time of the year, the most stressful time of the year, the most depressing time of the year, or the most lonely time of the year.
The holidays have a way of sending emotions into overdrive. Twinkling lights, Hallmark movies, and sugar cookies can make some people overflow with joy. But for others, the happiness everyone else seems to feel causes a quick descent in the opposite direction. It feels like Eeyore walking around underneath a raincloud, wondering how the whole world doesn’t see the cloud dominating your life. There’s a part of you glad your storm isn’t apparent to everyone. But it seems less that they don’t see the cloud and more that they don’t see you at all. You’re invisible. You move from one thing to the next, talking to people, saying hello, sharing pleasantries, and all the while long for a deeper connection. You wish there were a friend who would see you and stay with you, even at the risk of muddy feet from the splash zone of your rain shower.
The hard truth is, sometimes people get lost in the shuffle. Connections happen online, while those in-person disappear. Life gets busy with to-do’s, and relationships get left by the wayside. We settle for surface-level friendships despite our heart’s longing for more. We are both the woman unseen, and the woman who doesn’t see.
Underneath the lights and glitter, Christmas is about proclaiming Jesus’ birth and what that means for us 2000 years later. We celebrate the gift of a Savior who came into our world to show God’s love for us in real, tangible, sacrificial ways. In recognizing how momentous the gift of relationship with Christ is, we realize that one of the greatest gifts we can give someone this season is the gift of ourselves— time, attention, presence, kindness, encouragement, friendship. Welcome someone into your home (even if it’s messy) with a hot cup of coffee, nestle into your couch, and open your eyes and ears to the woman before you. The woman who, like you, might feel she’s walking this world unseen.
Relationship is the real gift this season. Our Savior came to heal the world, to forgive our sins, and in so doing, open the door for an intimate relationship with him. And because he first loved us, we are free to love others, in real, tangible, sacrificial ways. We can give the gift of seeing, of knowing, of shared experiences. It won’t fix someone else’s storm, but that’s not our job; our job is to learn to meet them in their storm and not back away. That moment of connection, when love is poured out, that’s the most wonderful time of the year.
