on friendship and risk.

I remember sitting across from my friend at her dining room table on a sunny fall day. The kind of day in the Rocky Mountains that makes you squint because the light is so bright glaring and beaming through the windows. I also remember my hurried mess of sentences that were all leaning toward but not quite asking the question borne from a void in my heart. At the time, I was very good at being the babysitter who would hang around to share life with the adults upon their return. I was similarly proficient in standing on a stage and connecting with people through my gifts.

trip to Seal beach in Florida, complete with sea lice

But when it comes to relationships, failure and insecurity have largely kept me from risking just being me, Amanda, without offering a side of service or calling in the package. 

So as I sat extending my heart with an open hand, I fumbled around in the unfamiliar posture. 

Friendship is risky. I've been a firm believer that it's better not to love at all than to lose what you've put your heart into. People disappoint. They hurt you when they're trying to help you. They don't invite you and you feel left out. They say the wrong thing and the lies you tell yourself magnify the pain. They betray. They misunderstand. They leave. They die. 

If you would have condensed by random rabbit trail into a simple question, it would have been this: 

Will you be my friend? 

But attached to all the extra words were my unspoken doubts. 

Will you accept me? Will I be enough? Am I worth it?

The thing about my friend Andrea is she listened between the lines, and heard the heart of my question. Before she responded she set some parameters, too. Though her kids love me, I wasn't coming into her life to be a babysitter. Though she saw value in my worship leading, that wasn't going to be the basis of our friendship. Over the past two years, she has answered every question my insecure self was not quite bold enough to ask.

And so I have been loved well and fully by one of the greatest gifts I have ever been given. We have shared hours and white mochas, victories and valleys. She's challenged me and defended me. I've sat beside her child at the hospital and she's sat beside me at the hospital. The Parsley's have welcomed me into their family from our accidental vacationing in Florida together to Polar Express/Ice Cream/Dance Party nights. They have become my heroes and their realness has allowed me to see the mess of life as well as the joys. They do life well. And even when I try to walk out mad because they won't tell me what I want to hear.. they are leading me and teaching me how to do life well, too. They are pastors and they pastor with everything in them.

And now we are walking together through yet another season of learning. Andrea and I have cried, laughed, talked problems in circles, and dreamed of what's next. Because of all we've walked through (and trust me there's a lot) what's next has been one of the most difficult. And when things are difficult it's hard to do them well.

In my life, never more does this apply than saying goodbye.

The moment that loss even seems like an option, I normally bow out. I run. Hide. And skip the party. I lose people long before the moving van leaves. It's a lot about control. It's my effort to not feel what I know will be painful.

terrible picture, but a day to be remembered. 

In a week or two the Parlsey's will load up and move to Florida. I will not. They will continue to love people in a new location, as Worship Pastors at a new church. I will stay here and the following week realize a dream of recording a Kids Worship album. The Parsley's will not be there like I always expected them to be. I will rejoice in the faithfulness of God. And I will hurt. I am hurting right now. It would be easier to avoid and not watch packing and not attend the party. It would be easier not to do this well.

But that would not honor the friendship that was worth the risk. And it truly has been. If you told me 2 years ago it would hurt like this today… 

I'd still have had that squinty-eyed sunlight washed conversation.

i think that's what I've most learned from my friendship with Andrea. 

It's worth the risk.