Just make a friend

What does it mean to "Make a Friend"?  

In the children's book "Fox Makes Friends" by Adam Relf, young Fox wants to make friends and goes out into his forest home to do just that.  He actually creates his own friends.

"When Fox wants someone to play with, he takes his Mom's advice and sets off to make a friend. What happens along the way surprises him! Fox is about to make the best friends he could ever hope for, but not in the way he imagined."

It is a very good read.  I highly recommend it. Puts into perspective that sometimes we would rather pick and choose the qualities of the people we include in our lives rather than seeing the people around us as they are and showing them the care and love all people deserve when we see them through God's eyes.

And now on to the sharing of a story of faith.  What follows is the re-telling of the experience of "making a friend" by a member of St. Andrews.

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Several years ago now neither a worship service nor a church newsletter article went by without Pastor Dan talking about sharing one's faith by "just making a friend."  He said it so nonchalantly; with ease, and as though the task was no harder than making a sandwich.

But making friends isn't so easy.  For some, casual conversation with strangers is a breeze and good friends are made and come and go with just as much ease.  For others, friends leave marks and make an impact on our lives in such a way that when they are gone the world stops turning or might in fact begin to spin in the opposite direction.

So when we hear the word "friend" a whole host of ideas, life experiences, and emotions come to mind.  How is a person to easily "make a friend" when  for them a friend is a treasured possession with whom the deepest parts of life are shared and experienced?

After a bit of conversation amongst other individuals at St. Andrews what became clear was that the Pastor's call was not quite so easy to accept or understand (no matter how many times it was mentioned).  But in those same discussions the idea of "making a friend" grew, taking a slightly different shape in my own life.  Instead of thinking about "making a friend" I thought about who I saw on a regular basis on any given day and how I could be a friend or at least a welcoming person when I see them.

Now when I go to work I park in a parking garage.  Each day when I leave work I drive past the parking garage attendant.  Now most of the time when leaving work I am more than ready to get home, having spent a great deal of emotional and physical energy doing my job.  It would be easy and more than acceptable to simply wave and smile as I pass this gentleman but with "make a friend" on the brain I rolled down my window and said hello and introduced myself.  

That was over three years ago.  

In those three years I have learned many things about this gentlemen, his family, and where he is from.  We enjoyed sharing about the birth of our grandchildren and getting updates on how they have grown and while our conversations are inevitably brief (seems I leave the garage at a popular time) and we haven't had in-depth debates about faith or arranged for dinner engagements between our families, this man is more than a mere acquaintance.  When he misses work I ask about him, pray for him and his family, and always welcome him back with a big smile and a "where were you?"  

It was at the start of the fourth year of our friendship that I've come to see just part of the bigger picture of how much the "little things" in our lives can add up to make "big" impacts.  Upon returning from summer vacation I was excited to say hello and get caught up with Larry.  What I did not expect was a gift.  Over the summer he had visited his family in Africa and had brought me back a homemade necklace.  When I first rolled down my window three years ago to say hello I certainly could not foresee that our brief conversations would lead to a gift of thankfulness bought across oceans and brought back over several thousand miles.  

While it may seem like a mere necklace to some, to me it represents the reality that God works through what appears to be the most inconsequential aspects of our lives, showing us that he is alive and active in the world around us.  Reaching out and sharing our faith isn't just a matter of speaking the words but living out the care, concern and grace of God that we have been shown through Jesus.  That care, concern and grace is the foundation for my friendship with Larry and I am blessed to receive that care in return.

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