A Long-awaited Conversation: thoughts on friendship

In the gorgeous dark woodiness of Mezza9, I met L. for a long anticipated good conversation. Scrooge McDuck that I am, I normally shy away from expensive places. This time though, it seemed fitting to celebrate this moment properly.

After all, this conversation has been 4 years in the making. Heaven conspired to make it happen.

L has always been floating in my peripheral vision. We had been through a series of bizarre events together. Though there have been one or two attempts on both ends to get to know each other better as a consequence of bizarre events, no real friendship ever took root. We both were not ready for it. Our hearts were closed and the intentions too shallow, the fears too many to found anything solid on. Christ had not readied either of us for the moment yet.

Genuine friendship seems to require as much of a miracle as a genuine romantic relationship. Both parties need to be open, interested and willing to give it a go. I suppose next time, if I am ever tempted to think of why I have not been abundantly blessed in the romance department, I must give thanks for the extensive way I have been blessed in the friendship department. Real friends - encouraging, heart-to-heart, walk-me-through-Damascus friends - are true miracles as well.

Back to L : I have prayed for her to know God from time to time, always hoping that she would find Him in an unshakeable, healing way. I prayed sporadically, without any real expectations beyond a vague hope that something would change. God held more true than I did, thank goodness.

When I found out two weeks ago that God had dragged her into His Kingdom in a mighty big zap-from-the-sky way, I was literally dumbfounded. I sent her an SMS to gush out my congratulations and that led to many emotional SMS exchanges gushing about the amazing, fabulous, cunning, humourous, no holds barred God that we were now sharing at long last.

I love it when I can gush with a fellow believer about God - it makes me feel for the Paul-like ideal of Christian community. Paul was the original gusher - he really poured out his heart before the brethren he wrote to. Just check out the abandonment of his greetings, encouragements and grievings. I want to feel as passionately as he felt for the godliness of his fellow believers.

When L and I met today, we talked for three and a half hours straight - exchanging our salvation stories, summing up the past four years, musing through the life-changing revelations God led us to and urging each other on in our newfound desire to be humble and love our parents more meaningfully. "What's keeping you in your comfort zone?" she challenged me about my reluctance to be more consistent in relating to my mother. I was grateful for the fortrightness. She after all was taking a big step of her own with her mother. It gladdened me because she was the last person in the world whom I would expect to hear that from and want to be held accountable to. God has a great sense of timing and humour.

We talked about coming to realise that in Christianity, one's commitment to anyone and everyone was for life. Our relationships - friends, family, husbands to be - once committed to Christ, were meant to last through thick and thin, till His Kingdom Come. I think we are mistaken to believe that marriage is the only major, no-holds-barred commitment we can make in our lives. When Christ called us to be living sacrifices and be a Body to each other, I think He was that serious. Marriage just happens to be the most obvious, visible manifestation of sacrificial commitment. It does have the extra element of literal cleaving onto each other of course which makes it a unique commitment. But I think we need to seriously reconsider our unconscious devaluation of Christian relationships as lesser things compared to Christian marriages.

She handed me my birthday present. It was brilliant - throughly unexpected and genuine in its effort to find something I would want but never get for myself. I told her by SMS later that the conversation we shared and her present were one of the best birthday presents I had ever gotten in my life.

I was gladdened by our newfound friendship. I also thought about how I never had this chance to welcome somebody into God's fold before. It made me think I want to have more chances like this - where I can literally celebrate your turning point from "dead in sin" to "alive in Christ". We should celebrate this momentous occasion with great fanfare - after all the angels are rocking up a storm for us up in heaven as well! (Off tangent: I think we need to celebrate each other more in general. For instance, birthdays should be celebrated as rejoicing in your growing another year in Christ. We should not dread aging, disdain or brush aside birthdays as nothing. They are a momentous occasion for celebrating Christ's gift of life! We should not see it as a time to wheel out a perfunctory cake and card.)

730pm : It was a lovely conversation as we both hoped in our earlier SMSes. We searched for Christian books in Borders for a while and decided to part at the junction of Scotts and Orchard.

"Hey," I said, "Welcome to the kingdom." I gave her an embrace.

She returned it with the firmness that comes from sincerity.

She smiled and said,"We will keep talking." She later sent an SMS musing that she had a feeling we would be in each other's lives for a long time. I believe her.

We both left for home. I crossed a street. It glittered with rain, headlights and possibility.

God is good. His ways are high ways.