THE GRACE OF FRIENDSHIPS.
THE GRACE OF FRIENDSHIPS
“I am indeed truly blessed,” thought Mora.
She was grateful for what she had just witnessed.
Mama was on her merry way to ninety and was still very young at heart. She was attending a birthday party with some of her friends. These were women who had spent their teenage years together and, more than seventy years later, were still very much in touch.
But there was something about their friendship that struck Mora.
Everyone was completely comfortable with the other.
They had arrived in three separate cars, but when it was time to leave for the party, they decided to travel together in one car—just so they could chat, giggle and laugh all the way there and back.
Mora marvelled.
Seventy years of friendship!
These women had met as teenagers, when most of their lives were still ahead of them. And over the decades, life would undoubtedly have taken them along very different paths.
There would have been different opportunities.
Different accomplishments.
Different financial circumstances.
Different family experiences.
Different disappointments.
And certainly, different levels of success.
Yet here they were, approaching ninety, still comfortable enough with one another to squeeze into one car because they simply enjoyed being together.
There was something beautiful about that.
Dear friends, one of the greatest tests of a friendship may not necessarily be how we respond if things go wrong for the other person. It could very well be how we respond when things go exceptionally well for them.
The Bible tells us:
“Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep.”. Romans 12:15 KJV
We often talk about the importance of standing with people in difficult times—and rightly so.
But there is also grace required to stand beside somebody in their season of tremendous success and genuinely rejoice with them.
Can we celebrate our family members and friends when they receive the opportunity that we were hoping for?
Can we be delighted when their business flourishes while ours is struggling?
Can we celebrate another’s marriage, another’s child, another’s promotion, their new home or their breakthrough without quietly using their progress as a measuring stick for our own lives?
Can we rejoice when our friend is flying?
Not merely with a polite, “Congratulations!”
But genuinely, wholeheartedly, without comparison and without wondering why it happened for them and not for us?
Honestly, that takes grace.
God’s grace.
Now, that is not all.
There is another side to this.
If the tables were turned, can we succeed without making others feel small?
Can we enjoy what God has given us without constantly and subtly advertising the distance between us and our friends who are struggling?
Can we talk about our blessings without turning every conversation into an inventory of our achievements?
That too takes grace.
God’s grace.
The Apostle Paul writes:
“Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.” Philippians 2:3 KJV
Friendships were never intended to become competitions. But see where the world is today? Even some spouses in marriages are competing against one another. (That is a story for another time.)
God has not called us to run identical races.
Our journeys will look different.
Our seasons will come at different times.
Some will become mothers at twenty-four while others will have their first child at fifty-eight.
One person’s life may be very public while another person’s greatest accomplishments happen quietly. One may have more, materially, while another has been enriched in completely different ways.
Dear brother, dear sister, please know that different does not mean deficient.
And perhaps when we truly understand this, we become free.
Free to applaud one another.
Free to learn from one another.
Free to enjoy one another.
Free to say, “This is your season, and I am genuinely delighted for you.”
And free, when it is our season, to carry our blessings with humility.
I think again about Mora’s Mama and her friends.
After more than seventy years, surely there had been opportunities for comparison.
Yet what Mora saw was not competition.
She saw friendship.
She saw laughter.
She saw women who had lived long enough to understand that somebody else’s success did not diminish their own lives.
When it is our turn to soar, let us do so without making those around us feel that they are somehow beneath us.
Life may give us different opportunities.
Different accomplishments.
Different seasons.
And different levels of success.
But let us pray for the grace of God to remain genuinely happy for one another, whatever season we find ourselves in.
After all…
Three cars were available.
They still chose to ride together in one.
What a friendship!
What Grace!
OLUYINKA EGO-MARTINS ©