Whole 07: Understanding the Seasons of Friendship & Help for When Friends Hurt You Transcript
This transcript has been edited for clarity.
Emily Jensen: There's this reel we both were laughing at, about friendship, that I feel like sums up friendship and motherhood. It's these two moms, and they're talking back and forth, and they are trying to plan a time to get together. And they just keep going back and forth. They're like, "What about Thursday? What about next Friday? What about the 20th of next month?" Every time they go back and forth, one of them is like, "Oh, but I have practice on that day. We're traveling on that day. There's a surgery on that day." Back and forth, back and forth. Eventually, they find a date—oh, no, in the middle of this, one of them gets distracted and doesn't text the other back for like three days.
Laura Wifler: It's like a three-day break. No big deal. [Laughter]
Emily: No big deal. Let's try to keep planning this. Then, eventually, they find a date on the calendar that works. In six months. The mom ends by saying something like, "I'll see you in six months as long as it's not raining, no one gets sick, and we don't forget," or something like that. You realize, even with all of this planning, it could still fall through at the last minute. I really think that sums up what it feels like to try to get together with friends in this season. Sometimes it's like, even if you desire it—even if you feel like you're moving heaven and earth—it is almost impossible to sync schedules. Then as soon as you do, someone gets sick.
Laura: It's true. Being a mom and having friends is very, very hard to do. I think that it's something that—friendship changes a lot over the course of life, of course, but specifically in motherhood. Depending on the season that someone is in who's listening to this show, it can look very, very different. In some ways, it's like, "There's hope because the season can change, and it can get a little easier to maintain friendships." Also, it's like, "Oh, but there's just new challenges and varied issues that come up." Yet everyone wants friends. Everybody needs friends. It's how God created us to be. We want to have relationships with other people, but oh man, it can be hard.
Emily: As we are thinking about being Whole women in Christ in this series, yes, it's really important that we go to Scripture and see how God designed us to live in community. There are so many verses about friends in Scripture. Proverbs 17:17: "A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity." Ecclesiastes 4:9-10: "Two are better than one because they have a good reward for their efforts. For if either falls, his companion can lift him up." There's “Iron sharpens iron.” There's so many examples of the importance of great friends, specifically friends that are following God together and encouraging one another throughout the Bible.
Even Jesus was close friends with his disciples. He lived in community. I think sometimes—and I've been guilty of falling into this trap—I can feel like it's easier to be independent, and it's easier to be a lone ranger. I think friendships feel risky. Friendships feel vulnerable. Friendships make logistics challenging, and it can be really hard to say, "Yes, this matters." Yet we see in the example of Scripture how much it matters. I know when I have made time for that anyway and invested in that anyway, even though it feels really, really challenging, I have seen so much reward and joy in that over the years.
Laura: Yes. It is hard. There's two sides to every friendship, right? There's you as the friend, and then there's the other friend that you can't control. I know that, yes, for me, friendship really became real—because it was hard for me to—I don't know. I don't know. I should back up. I feel like having friendships has always been fairly easy, and it's actually getting harder for me in a weird way.
Yes, I remember when we lived in the Chicago area and I had no family around—none at all—and we went through some very, very hard seasons and just a lot of things where I needed people. I needed help. I remember at that time really understanding what it means whenever we talk about that little picture of heaven that a community can be. Because I didn't have the whole family where “blood is thicker than water,” and you're always there for each other. I started to really understand what it looks like to have friends who are in the body of Christ that love you because you're a sister in Christ, and you're part of their family.
It was really incredible to get a front-row picture of how the body can work. I don't think I'd ever had that because I'd lived so close to family for so long that they were my support system. When that was stripped away, that was huge for me to help me understand not just the gift of a friend to me but also the way that I can be a friend to others, probably perhaps better than I had been before.
Emily: I've really struggled with friendships over the years. If we were having coffee, we could get into a whole story about this and all the things that have contributed to it. I have just really been humbled by how much people have loved me and reached out to me, even though I don't think I have always invested deeply in a lot of different relationships. I think the generous support of other people—even when they aren't family, even when they don't have to—has really blown me away.
Even just in my faith and my thinking about things—it's been so shaped when I've let other people in, even with the risks. Some of you that are listening may relate to my story or Laura's story, or you may have a completely different story. You might be in a season where you're like, "I have moved to a new place, and I don't even have one friend right now. I don't even have anyone that I can talk to." We actually have a whole episode on that. Episode 38. Woo, that's way back in the archives.
Laura: I think we did that whenever I moved to Chicago and had no friends.
Emily: Oh, yes.
Laura: I'm like, "Here's how I'm going to try to make some friends."
Emily: You'll like this episode. We'll have that linked in the show notes that you can listen to. That episode is all about finding friends and how to do that. Today, we want to dive into maintaining friendships. This Whole series has been about, "Okay, what are some things that change after motherhood? What are some things that you feel like you lose or you maybe can't focus on in the same way?" Friendships being one of those things that changes. How can we now—knowing that, getting through the other side of it—reinvest in those things, remember the importance that they have to us as Christian women, and see why these things are still worth the effort? Even though it is sometimes like, "See you in six months. Hopefully."
Laura: Or there's just brokenness, right?
Emily: Yes.
Laura: I think that's something that I was saying earlier. Friendship has always not been too hard for me. I feel like I've maintained a lot of friends and make friends quickly. Yet as time has gone on in motherhood, I've seen friendships break, and I've seen hardship and conflict. We want to talk about that a little bit, I think, today too, because that's a very real reality of being friends with people—anyone.
Of course, though, let's start with ourselves. The best thing that someone can do is be the friend that you want to have. I think you were hinting at this, Emily, and I feel this more and more as I think my life has gotten more full and I have less capacity to be what I would call a good friend. I think that this can happen for two reasons. One is there's a capacity issue in motherhood. I think that's very real. Then there's also an element of—sometimes, we're either afraid or we're unwilling to put in the energy that it takes to be a good friend.
Yet, the call of God's Word is that we are to be good friends. We are to encourage one another. We are to build each other up. I think of John 15:12-15. He says, "My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you." Then 1 Thessalonians 5:11: "Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing."
I think that this call—the example that Christ shows of laying down his life for his friends—that is a hard call at times because we're so full with our own families and our own children's needs and the work of the house. And any outside of the home work that we do can feel like, "I don't have capacity to do that." Yet you and I both have sat here saying, "It's such a blessing when our friends have loved us—when they don't owe us anything." That's something that for all of us, no matter how you're wired—I think remembering that there are always ways that we can be good friends to people.
You may be really strong in one area and weak in another, and we don't want to use that as an excuse to say, "Well, I'm not very good at cooking, so I'm never going to bring my friend a meal." Instead, I think we can lean into areas where maybe we are better gifted as a friend. For me, I would say, I am more of an encourager. If someone has a dilemma they're working through or they want to talk or they want to process, I'm going to be their girl, but I don't really bring meals to friends very well. I'll be honest.
I've learned, "Well, I'm just going to send them a Chipotle gift card," because I want to do something, but realistically, I can barely get dinner on the table for my family anymore. I actually do like to cook, but with how much I work and the dynamics of our family life, that's not as feasible for me. I typically send a gift card, and it's something that I know that I can do. I've had to think through, "What's a way that I can love someone, even if it doesn't look exactly like a traditional, church-loving way?"
Emily: Yes. It is good to ask, "What can I do?" versus thinking of all the things you can't do. I was just talking to someone yesterday—a friend of mine—and I was telling her, "Hey, there's this other friend I have who lost a family member. I thought of her—days have gone by, and I haven't done anything, and I just feel like I should do"—processing all of this with her.
She reminded me, "Oh, you sent flowers when my grandma died, and I saw them at her funeral, and it really moved me." She's like, "I still have that card." I'm like, "Really? I was worried that you'd never even see those flowers because there were so many flowers there." I was like, "I didn't even know if that mattered." She was like, "It really mattered to me. It's not too late to send the flowers."
I was like, "Oh, yes, I can do that this week." I may not be able to go over there. I may not have two hours this week to go process with her in person, but I can do something. I've really had to be okay and content with less-than-perfect in certain situations. Perfect would be—not calling them. That sounds like a nightmare. Calling and talking on the phone.
Laura: Oh, the phone. Nobody likes the phone anymore. Are you kidding? Voxer is where it's at. [Laughter]
Emily: Yes. Maybe it's going over in person. You can imagine in your mind, "Oh, this is the exact thing I would like to do for them." Nothing is not the right answer either.
Laura: Right. Just in the same way that we need to reshape the ways that our friends can love us—which I think we're going to talk about—we need to be willing—I think it's that tension we have to hold, right? Which is, "Hey, my natural way of being a friend is like this." You probably have some really good strengths of how a person is a good friend but then also recognizing, "Well, my friend is loved by this." For me, if nobody brought me a meal—I don't want to say this because I feel like no one's going to bring me a meal anymore, but I'm pretty chill about—I don't feel like people owe me meals when stuff happens because I'm just a pull-up-by-the-bootstraps—go.
When people have done that, I have been so touched and so loved and surprised by my response. That has been good for me to remember because, sometimes, when someone needs a meal on the other end, I'm like, "Oh, it's not that big of a deal. I wouldn't need a meal." Yet, I have to remind myself, "Okay, if it made that much of an impact on me—who's like, 'Meals aren't that big of a deal'—imagine for somebody who's like, 'That is a big stressor in my life for these reasons.'" I don't know. It's a way for me to help frame myself—it's worth loving them because it does matter, against my natural tendency to think, “This isn't making an impact.” So good.
Emily: On the flip side of that, we wanted to talk a little bit about our expectations for friendships and how, especially as life gets busier, we almost have to be more flexible in what we imagine a friendship could be or should be. I know the typical example of this is, "Hey, we've gone a really long time without talking to each other." There can be this sense of like, "Is there something going on between us? Do we need to now spend a whole bunch of time repairing this friendship?"
It's like, "Yes, this is going to look different.” The new reality might be that we go three months without talking, but what a blessing it would be if, when we talk again, we can just pick up where we left off, and there doesn't have to be any awkward apologizing. There doesn't have to be any weird clear in the air—assuming that they were mad at you. We can all just be busy and be thankful for the time that we have together. I think that it takes a lot of graciousness and flexibility and believing the best to get through friendships in this season.
Laura: That's a word. I think that different women are going to have different capacities for friendship and different needs for it. Somebody who has lots of family nearby may not need friends as deeply as someone who is all alone without family. Maybe somebody is just wired for one to two friends, and they don't really need a huge circle. Another person is like, "Oh, I like to have my different friends for all these different things." That is what will absolutely torpedo a friendship: an expectation that a friend—one friend—be all the things for you.
We have to get it in our heads that we have to allow women themselves to be who they are. Sometimes a friendship is just not going to happen in a certain season. Emily is just nodding away. The lips even puckered up. Yes, you can say amen. It's fine. Now I lost my train of thought, but I think that is so important for us as women and moms—to pull the expectations off and believe the best in one another. Unless there have been some words exchanged—where it's like, "Hey, that hurt my feelings. I didn't love that moment"—I think that we owe it to one another to go through the front door when things are hard and say, "I didn't love this." That's hard. That's very hard.
We also owe it to our friends to believe the best and assume, "She's busy with her life. This doesn't mean all these hundreds of things I'm conjuring in my mind, and I'm losing sleep over at night.” But instead, to believe the best in her and to keep reaching out. But also be gracious whenever maybe she doesn't respond to a text, or she doesn't have time or capacity. And maybe even read the signs. I think that, at some point, I'll be like, "Okay, the ball's in their court. I'll let them come back to me if they want to be my friend or they want to hang out. I've texted a few times; we'll just leave it. If they want to hang, then they will. If not, maybe it's just not the right season."
Emily: Yes. Man, that identity in Christ thing comes up over and over and over and over and over again because, at the end of the day, if we have our identity in him, and we are having a lot of those needs met from the Lord, and we are resting in him—yes, we still have needs for other people in our life, and we have wants for that, and we can long for that, but we don't have to put this pressure on our friends to accept us and love us and provide everything for us. It's really hard to think that way.
I think when we don't have a baseline expectation of what our friends do for us, then anything they do give us is something we can have great gratitude for and really truly enjoy and be blissfully surprised by. It's like, "Oh, you brought me a coffee. That is so awesome. I was not expecting that." Or "You brought me a meal. I was not expecting that. Or "Hey, this friendship has blossomed into something that I wasn't expecting." That's so exciting and wonderful. It just flips the narrative a little bit: "Here's my long list of things you should do for me as a friend," versus "I want to serve you as a friend. I want to love you as a friend, but I don't have a long laundry list of expectations for you. Whatever you do is great."
Laura: It's so true. Often, the expectations we have on our friends—it's like, "Well, this is the friend that I am. Therefore, I expect you to be this friend back to me." That's where things get messy. It leads us to our next point though, which is what happens when a friendship fails. We want to talk about this because, as we think about being Whole in this series—and knowing with ten/eleven years of motherhood under Emily’s and my belt—we have seen times where friendships have changed.
I know a lot of that stuff happens in high school—happens in college. Of course, lots of people have different failures at different times with friendships, but there's sort of a uniqueness, I think, of it happening in motherhood, especially if you've had a friend who you have done a lot of life with, or your kids have been raised together, or there are circles that are overlapping and for one reason or another hasn't worked.
Of course, you have the idea of location. We'll just get that out of the way right now. I have tried to maintain a lot of my friendships in other cities where I've lived as a mom. I will tell you what—it's basically impossible. There were a couple of friends that I'm like, "I'm going to remain friends with them beyond a Christmas card." It has become really, really hard. I know if I see those women for some overlapping thing— maybe at a conference, we'll see each other or something like that—it is hugs and high fives and, "Oh my gosh, how are you?" I'm so thankful that I haven't felt like there's this, "Oh, now we need to talk on the phone every day, or we need to send each other stuff or be at each other's events."
There's that awkwardness that goes on where you start to realize, "Oh, that's not going to work because our lives are here. I can't have a friend six hours away." Some people, I want to say, are able to maintain that. There are some people who are gifted, and there's reasons why they can maintain that. In general, you can't be friends with people in faraway locations. I don't know; maybe I'm making it too big of a blanket statement. Am I? Am I doing that?
Emily: I think it's really hard. I think especially as you get busy—and maybe another sort of figurative way that people change locations is they change theologically, or they change their lifestyle, or they change their values in such a way that makes your lives quite different to where it's really hard to communicate with each other anymore. It's really hard to be on the same page because you don't really understand where that friend is coming from anymore. Maybe you can respect each other. You can love each other as sisters in Christ. But in terms of how you're orienting your families, it's just—it's really quite different.
Or, logistically, on a day-to-day basis—we've talked through this before a little bit; of like, hey, if you are a full-time working mom and you have a friend who's a stay-at-home mom, your schedules may not overlap the same way they did before. If you are a mom who has kids in school full-time all day, every day, and then you have a friend who homeschools her kids, your actual schedules and activities may not overlap the same way that they did before. The things you have in common may not be there. Maybe your friend moves to a different church or something like that. Again, you can still love her, you can still respect her, you can still be great sisters in Christ and be like, "I have no ill will, but we don't cross paths anymore. Our circles don't overlap anymore."
I think that's something, Laura, you and I have noticed in the school season and the activity season that we're in now. I almost have to invest in friendships with people I naturally cross paths with on a frequent basis. It is so hard to maintain a deep friendship with someone that—I just don't see them naturally ever. Yet, there are all kinds of women that I'm like, "I see you in the pickup line. I see you at every practice. I see you at the swimming pool. I see you everywhere. There could be a friendship here." I think we have to look for that and be honest that it's okay for friends to change from season to season. If we're not putting all the pressure on our friend to be all things for us, then things can come and go without there being deep devastation, even if there is a little bit of sorrow or a pang of loss.
Laura: Yes. I think you can have great chemistry with someone. I know that I've had a few friends where I'm like, "Man, I love her, but our circles don't cross. We don't overlap. To see one another is like moving heaven and earth." It really is like that reel you shared at the beginning where it's like, "See you in six months." Almost that causes this unnecessary guilt for me because I'm like, "I'm not seeing her enough. I don't spend enough time with her. I'm not doing the things that I should do."
I think with many of those friends, we've just sort of accepted that, "Hey, we're going to see each other at this one thing and be thankful for that time but not take on pressure." Like, "Let's go on a walk. Let's go do this." It's like, "I don't have capacity for that!" I've been so thankful because many of those friends who I've felt chemistry with are allowing me to live my life, and they live theirs, and we're just thankful for whenever things do overlap.
I think you're right when you started talking about—sometimes you're even in close location with someone, but their theology changes—their views on things. These days, political views. Even if you have similar theology, your political views can even be wildly different in some ways. Even with healthcare and the way we raise our kids. You can be very similar theologically or go to the same church but have very different, contrasting views on how that plays out in your daily life.
With certain personalities and certain people, sometimes that becomes just a really difficult relationship to be in, where one or the other of you is feeling pressured to conform or to make the other happy, or there's conflict that comes in. I think that is really painful. That's a lot of times when friendships begin to fail. A lot of times, I find that it is due to a misunderstanding on one party of interpreting something or a wrong expectation on behalf of one party. Then the other party is like, "Oh, I've got to respond to this." That can be really hard.
I think there are a few things we can do when we feel like a friendship isn't healthy or isn't right. Of course, the first thing is to spend time praying. That is not a pat answer. You should be on your knees about that, especially if that person is still in your circles or you're trying to wait—you can't just move away. You've got to figure out a way to coexist.
Emily: Yes. I think alongside prayer, with God's guidance, we can start to see maybe where we do have those different convictions and see maybe how things have changed over the years and why we might need to move into a different season with new friends. Sometimes a difficult conversation might need to happen. A lot of times, again, if we've prayed, hopefully we're coming with humility, and we're coming with questions. It's not something like, "You're doing this wrong"—whatever it is. It's just, "Hey, we're in different seasons now. This is difficult." You can always get your husband's insight—get the insight of wise mentors.
I think the other thing that's really important in the midst of all this, that we're probably all susceptible to falling into, is gossip. I think there's that stereotypical form of gossip that we typically think of—like, "Did you hear that Susan did so-and-so, blah, blah?" Or "Susan did this or that thing, da-da-da-da-da." I actually think that most gossip doesn't sound like that, and it doesn't come with a big red flag. It is something that is a lot more subtle and, honestly, a lot more sinister.
When you are sitting around with your group of friends and you hear yourself talking about this person over and over again, and you're saying things that throw a shadow on someone's reputation that isn't deserved and isn't that person's business, you are engaging in some gossip or manipulation or trying to get friends on your side as this other friendship dissolves. There is a healthy way to go about putting some distance with a friend that doesn't turn a bunch of other people against them. It's really difficult. It's like, "Well, then, how do I get advice about them?" There's probably ways to do that. I'm sure there are ways to do that without gossiping.
Laura: Yes. I think it's selecting who you speak with. There's a big difference between talking to a room of five/ten people and telling the story versus, "Hey, can I meet with you because I want to talk about this relationship that I would like help with?" I always remind myself that if I am feeling tempted to talk about this person in a way that tarnishes their character, they are probably feeling that way about me. I do not want to be spoken about in that way. The compassion for myself gives me compassion for others—whatever mind tricks you need to do.
As you process through the failing of a relationship, it's probably a slow fade and a slow recognition. There could be a blow-up, but I have found that it's very important to first come to that person and be direct—to go through the front door and say, "Hey, I feel like we're off. I feel like we’re weird. Can we talk?" Just having that direct—for me, I feel like if you can have that conversation with that person—and maybe it becomes very apparent in that conversation that you cannot see eye to eye—then that's probably a time to be able to set that down. You'll have a good pulse on it.
I think there's a difference between "I want this to work," and "This will work." You can walk away from those kinds of conversations, I think, knowing which one that is. Then that's where I have gone to, "Okay, the ball's in their court. I feel like I've done everything I can. I've apologized for things—apologized for any possible things," and then you just leave it in the Lord's hands and allow that to be what it is.
Remember that you didn't marry that person. You're not in covenant together. I think that's been really key for me—that I am not required to have this friend just because I'm a Christian woman. Because I have felt in different friendships that have not gone well, or something's happened—I sound like I'm just torpedoing relationships everywhere, but this has happened more that I've had to learn to be able to say—I put pressure on myself that, "Well, I'm a Christian. I need to be at peace with all, and I need to have everybody believe that I have good character and that no one's speaking bad about me because I want that reputation."
It was a genuine—not a prideful way of—but just wanting to represent Christ well. Knowing I've failed, knowing I'd messed up—I was not perfect in every relationship, but I think there's something about recognizing that that's a reality of life after the fall. Not everyone's going to like you, and not everyone's going to understand you. You have to get used to allowing it, to grieving it, and then learning to move on.
Emily: Just to spin a positive light on things, because I feel like we're going—
Laura: I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
Emily: No, it's good. We're just going deep down in all the things today. It's helpful to identify one or two friendships in your life with women that you're like, "I want to go deeper with this person because this person brings out Christlike attributes in me and helps me make wise choices as a woman of God." It's interesting because Laura and I get a chance to be around and interact with a lot of different women because of Risen Motherhood and our ministry roles—a lot of different women over the years and even in church environments. I'm always amazed at how there are some women that, after I've spent time talking with them, I want to go read my Bible. I want to go deeper with the Lord.
Laura: They ooze Jesus.
Emily: Yes.
Laura: He just drips from them.
Emily: You're done hanging out with them, and you're thinking about how you want to grow with God, and they leave you feeling encouraged—and not like that "Oh, I just patted you on the back" encouraged. Encouraged in a deep spiritual way. I just think, man—first of all, I want to be like that to people. Second of all, those are the type of women that I want to invest deeply with.
There are also women that you come up to or interact with and you leave, and you feel this tumultuous—you feel nauseous; you feel scared about life. You leave with anxiety. You leave feeling like you need to Google; you need to change your whole motherhood. You need to reevaluate all your decisions. I don't know that Christ in someone should make you feel that way.
Is that a healthy person that you need to be going deeper with? Might be an acquaintance—might be someone that you enjoy—but might not be the woman that you want speaking into your life and into your motherhood and into your marriage.
Find those women, pray that God would bring you those women, and when you find them, bring them the meals. Send them all the gift cards. Send them all the flowers. Be BFFs with that person.
Laura: Yes. I love that. This was some hard stuff.
Emily: We really got into this topic.
Laura: We did. Obviously, it's very real for both of us. We recognize that for all of you, friendship is a big topic. It's not something small in everyone's life. I know that we have a God-given design for a relationship, and yet, it is messy and hard. Just know over time, your friendships are going to change, and we have to get really comfortable with that. Also, remember your friends don't define you, and they don't get to tell you who to be. I think that's huge. Really only Christ does that. That's where this Whole series comes from—that we remember our identity in Christ as we interact with these women. Today, maybe go bring a friend a meal or get them a Chipotle gift card—whichever one floats your boat—and have a conversation and hang out. Also believe the best in them no matter where they're at.
