Sculpting a Friendship

"With our babies born within days of each other, my friends and I compared notes incessantly. However, when our second children were born, the questions and comparisons became overwhelming. If I had to talk about one more baby step, I thought I would - spit up!

Then we all attended a women's retreat-without children! There I asked my friends deliberate questions that focused on our hopes, heart and spiritual life. We all had enough baby talk and needed serious soul time. I returned from the retreat refreshed and challenged.

That weekend shifted our relationships. We still talked babies, but also reclaimed the crucial adult focus on our pre-parenting friendship. Before we were moms, we were women. If we lose that core truth, we lose perspective and tilt off-balance.

For years, I thought friendships just happened. Now I realize the importance of shaping relationships, sculpting them into a structure of beauty that benefits both sides. How does this happen?" Excerpt by Jane Rubietta, MomSense Magazine

1 - Take an honest look at your friendships. Do you have one or two friends in whom you can share the secret places of your heart. If not, is that a connection you would like to grow in an existing friendship? Who would that be? What would you do together to create a safe haven for sharing doubts, frustrations, failures & dreams?

2 - Take a risk. Have an honest conversation with those friends you identify. Ask them if they'd be willing to have some "serious" time with you. Form an accountability group or life group. Maybe just schedule a regular time each month to get together with the understanding that conversation won't remain on the superficial, "what have you been doing" stuff but will go deeper to prayer needs and other things.

3 - Take the time. Rarely do friendships begin without any effort and they certainly do not grow and enrich our lives without time and energy being invested in them. Set aside time to gather with friends. It's a hard thing to do with little ones at home, but if it's a heart priority, then make it a scheduling priority. It won't be wasted time.

My prayer is that God will use Mom's Carelink to birth fresh, new friendships and deepen old friendships. That we would allow Him to work in our lives and believe that He can guide us to those friends that will be exactly who we need at this time in our lives.