When Making Friends Doesn’t Come Easily
BY : SHELBY MILLER
I have this memory at a parent/teacher conference night in elementary school. We walked into my class, and I showed my parents my art projects and what desk I sat at. I pulled out my pencil box and showed my mom all my pencils, little cap erasers, and my 64 count box of crayons. “Shelby makes friends so easily,” my teacher bragged as she told my parents how I was doing in school and how I was getting along with the other kids.
Fast Forward from pigtails and training wheels to my freshman year of college. I had this tight knit, special group of friends in high school. We experienced life together from hard seasons of heartbreak to doing ministry together – we grew up alongside each other. And then we graduated high school and all went to different colleges in different states. Our last weekend together felt like something from a movie. Eight of us laid on a bed together with teary eyes knowing it would never be like this again.
I walked into my freshman year of college so thankful that I “made friends so easily”– I wanted what I had in highschool. I needed to find my people so we could get real and deep and honest as fast as possible. Then fear crept in…what if I never find that again? God had already made it clear that He was calling me to the mission field after college. I felt the tension of that calling. Part of me was longing to have community while the other part of me was unsure if I wanted to invest in a place I would eventually leave. I made some friends in college but it wasn’t like the friends I had in highschool. It was never the friendships that felt supernatural, like they held a purpose bigger than either of us. The type of friends that make you wonder how you’ve made it through life thus far without them. After college I married my dream guy who I had dated long distance throughout college. He moved to Birmingham where I had somehow lived for 4 years without really settling down. I had made up my mind that this was temporary, and the more roots I laid down the harder it would be to leave.
My husband, Logan, is the life of every party. He attracts people and instantly makes them feel at ease. We knew we were called to move to Honduras after paying off our student loans, but we also knew that was several years out of reach. I knew that if my people loving, social butterfly husband was going to be happy in this season, we needed some other young couples to do life with. With so many hesitations, we joined a small group at our church. I was there to find some friends for Logan. Questions were spiraling in my mind: “what if he makes friends and doesn’t want to move to Honduras?”, “what if the wives don’t like me?”, and “what if they aren’t friends with us because of me?” We went to our first group and met 3 couples that would change our lives forever. One would mentor us and two would become some of our best friends. I did not want to be in Birmingham, and it felt like some kind of punishment from God. But when we moved to Honduras in May 2022, that “punishment” was the thing I mourned the most…the people that were hardest to leave. We had that “I’m at the store and your favorite ice cream is on sale, do you want me to grab some?” kind of friendship. We showed up unannounced at each other’s homes. We could sit in silence or scream at the top of our lungs. We had the type of community I think God created us for.
Now we live in Honduras and are trying to make these multicultural friendships that I know will be so beautiful. We aren’t there yet and if I’m honest, there are times I’ve wondered if we will ever have those kind of friendships again. Will I ever have a friend to call on my way home from work just to see how her day was? Will I have friends to plan birthday parties and baby showers for? But I’ve wondered all that before.
The truth is friendship is hard, and it’s something we must cultivate and fight for. We cannot passively make friends that become the deep connections that carry our burdens. It takes putting our hearts on the line. It takes vulnerability. It takes showing up when you don’t feel like it, and some awkward conversations on the front end. But I think back on my time in Birmingham and shudder when I think what if I hadn’t…what if I hadn’t gone to that small group? What if I hadn’t gone to dinner or stayed after group to talk? What if I had stayed in my loneliness, with walls built high to protect myself? I would’ve missed out on these friendships that pushed us to Honduras instead of holding us back. I would’ve missed out on people that made my marriage so much stronger and prepared us for the mission field. I would’ve missed out on the people I call after a hard day in Honduras. I would have missed out on some of the best days of our lives.
Friendship is hard. It’s really really hard for broken people to come alongside other broken people. We have jagged edges and scars from our pasts that sometimes get snagged along the way. But life without deep, vulnerable friendships can feel so empty. We were not created for the superficial, instagram worthy friends that go out together and then go home feeling like nobody really knows them. We were made to ask hard questions, to be known, and to get messy in each others’ lives. It’s hard, it’s scary, it’s vulnerable…and it’s worth it.
