As another long holiday weekend comes to pass, I contemplate where perhaps my husband and I “went wrong” as the saying goes. I wonder why we don’t have any couple friends who want to “do life” together. I’ve wrestled with this, I’ve prayed through it and I’ve let it go. I’ve picked it back up though it would seem this weekend for some reason. I guess those idols we hold dear and then let go have a way of enrapturing us again if we let our guard down.
Recently, we faced yet another family crisis. We didn’t have any friends show up to the hospital. We did have one of our son’s friend’s parents show up, and they are friends but not those kind of “friends” to my husband and me. They already have couple friends you know? They aren’t part of a larger family like we are, and mostly they just don’t need more friends. I get it. I will always be grateful the husband/Dad showed up, but I looked out at the waiting room and wondered where was everyone else? Truth be told, we didn’t call anyone but family when our son tried to take his own life. I did call this man’s wife because I was hoping her son might have heard from our son who took off from home in a very angry state. It wasn’t long after he took off that I heard from a family member whose child has access to his social media account that he had posted an ominous message. It was terrifying, and I don’t want to get into details of that dreadful and hope-filled day; it was just a recent reminder that we don’t have a tribe or a village or a life group or … those kind of friends that people talk about who’d be there no matter what.
Wait for the Lord; be strong and let your heart take courage; Yes, wait for the Lord. Psalm 27:14
As I contemplate the lack of invitations to beginning of the summer season pool parties and try to avoid Facebook so I don’t have to see all the invites we didn’t get locally, I do wonder mostly this–What, O Lord, are you trying to teach us during this season? Is this from You, Lord, or is it of our own making?
My husband and I have walked alongside two of our children in particular through very dark, desert-like valleys that quite frankly are life-long paths they will take. There is no simple solution or quick fix or miracle cure. There is just a daily willingness to accept what we do not understand, what we cannot change and what we must endure as their greatest earthly champions. Through these walks, we’ve learned trust is something to not be taken lightly and is something you rarely give to others, because we’ve been trampled on and burned badly more than a few times. We’ve also shared these deep struggles at times only to realize these “good friends’ really couldn’t take the mire in which we had found ourselves neck-deep.
I’m not sure what the point of my mind’s wanderings are today, but I suppose I want anyone else who might read this to know there is always a choice to be made. To choose joy or to choose sorrow. I know that our family is precious, we have a lot to offer in terms of genuine friendship and we are always willing to try again when it seems others show an interest in getting to know our family on a more intimate level. As our children are growing older, I do feel the window has permanently closed on finding that family or families to walk alongside and grow up and older together through hard times and good times and holiday times and milestone times … and I will always wonder why God withheld that longstanding prayer of mine from us, but I won’t doubt His goodness and abiding love for us. I trust He has a reason and I trust He knows the season in which we trod better than we ever could.
If you find your family friendless today, take heart that He is good and He is able and He is with you always.
These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world. John 16:33