Guinea Pigs and Unexpected Friendships

This past weekend, two sweet friends came to visit me. One I knew in college, and one I didn't know at all. They came to DC to see a musical at the National Theatre on Friday, so I joined them for the show, and they stayed at my house until Saturday evening.   In the process, they got to be guinea pigs of my hospitality.  I think I talk to a lot of people about hospitality.  I love having friends around, and I'd like to be good at it one day, so I'm trying to figure all of that out.  Thank you, guinea pig friends, for your patience.

When we got home from the theater, we stayed up talking for a while with one of my roommates. "How long have you guys known each other?" she asked. "Three years," said my friend from college.   "Three days!" said the other girl, and my roommate looked surprised. "Probably not even. We just met once a few months ago."

In a small way, this girl was a guinea pig in the area of showing hospitality to strangers (as per Hebrews 13:2).  Although we'd heard stories about each other and weren't exactly strangers, it was close enough, but we had a lovely time.  The other girl, my friend from college, has visited and endured being a hospitality guinea pig before, and we reminisced a little.  She is one of my most unlikely friends.  We had some mutual friends in the music department when I was finishing college, and she kind of adopted me and my roommate as her older sisters.

This wouldn't have been my first choice, as she knows, and we laugh about it now. She's quite a chatterbox and would often launch into monologues that didn't make much sense outside her own brain, and it wore me out more often than not.  I found her a bit annoying and immature.

But she also chose to trust me, out of no awesomeness of my own, and I learned to make room in my heart for this friend. I learned a lot from her, actually.  She remembers and cares about even the tiniest things about her friends, and she is quick to love nearly anyone who comes across her path.  I learned that it's no light thing to be trusted, even if I wasn't looking for it.  I learned that I can't just assume I will automatically be a sweet and loving friend all the time if I'm not grounded in how much and how immensely God loves.

I learned that my immaturities are on their brightest display when I start to look down on someone else's.  I learned that there are always reasons behind the story I see on someone's surface, and while they may be deeper than I want to handle, they will never be stronger than the love of Jesus.  I learned that love really is patient and kind, and if I want to be a loving friend, then I better learn to be tenaciously patient and valiantly kind.

I also learned that my first impressions are not always accurate, and I can find good friends in surprising places if I am willing to get over myself and look there.  I probably can't begin to count the people who got...ahem...less-than-stellar first impressions of me but kindly overlooked them. I learned that hospitality means space in my heart and generosity with my time more than it means extra plates at dinner or clean sheets for the spare bed.

Above all, I've learned that friendship is not about me at all, and I will never be a good friend if I think it is. But if I'm willing to love a friend the way she needs it, with the love that God is constantly showing me, it has a way of making me happy too. In other words, "If we love one another, God abides, lives, and remains in us, and His love (that love which is essentially His) is brought to completion, to its full maturity, runs its full course, is perfected in us!" (1 John 4:12, Amplified).

Three years of friendship later, I think we've both grown up a bit, but I'm still finding plenty of things to learn.  Over the summer, I got an email from her that ended with this, so I will end with it too: "It's reminding me to give all of the love that has been lavished on me out to others. It should be a challenge to see how much love can you give out in a day. That would be fun."

A Year and a Little More Rain Later

Here is the most recent picture of me and my brother Philip.  Lovely, isn't it?  My mom took it the last time we were all together in early July, and we weren't ready for it.  There's something I like about this picture, though.  There we are, standing together and looking a little bit weird.  That's pretty normal, I suppose, so it makes me smile and miss my brother.  He has also stood beside me during much more serious things that I was not ready for, so I can let it remind me of some poignant memories if I want to, and that makes me miss him even more.

But I'm not writing about my brother today.  This morning, I was not ready for the rain that caught me on my way to work.  It didn't last long, but it was just enough to make me regret wearing my hair down.  It was also just enough to make me think of Philip, who loves rainy days.

But I'm not writing about my brother today.  A year ago, I told you about my odd fascination with taking pictures like this:

And this:

For whatever reason, orphaned umbrellas like this catch my eye, so my camera lens catches them.  You're welcome to read what I wrote about that here, if you'd like.  My brother did and said he liked it, but I'm not writing about him today.

After my umbrella post, I stopped any semblance of blog writing for work-related reasons, and once those reasons no longer mattered, I never picked it up again.  I didn't think anyone would really care, but my big brother, who has always taken good care of me, noticed and said he missed it.  Over the last several weeks, he's been gently encouraging me to do some writing.  I would usually say something like, "thanks!  Yeah, I should really do that," throw a few sentences together, and never finish anything.

A week or two later, he would mention it again and tell me he missed my writing.  With a few minor exceptions--like the day when we were little and he suggested I touch an electric fence--I'm always glad when I listen to my brother, and I began to think that maybe I should listen again.

So I am taking my brother's advice, but I don't have a whole lot to say yet.  I suppose I could write about him, but I'm not doing that today.  All the creativity I have left for now is one final broken umbrella photo, and I will leave it at that.

Enjoy.