Vulnerability In Friendship

Vulnerability in Friendship

This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you.

“She was only twenty-eight when she passed away from cancer,” I shared with the women sitting around the table with me. We had stopped for a meal on the way back from a dance competition, and I was telling them about my sister’s death several years earlier and how hard it was during that season of loss (and even now, today). They listened compassionately, offering me support, and then after a moment of quiet, another woman began to share a hard part of her family’s story. Again we all listened to and affirmed her, loved on her, and supported her admission of grief.

A year earlier I had first met these other moms as my daughter got more and more involved in dance. Slowly, we had begun to open up about our lives—not just the good parts, but the hard as well. The women sitting around the table had become more than just acquaintances over that first year; we had become friends.

Since that dinnertime talk these women have become even-more-trusted friends. But it didn’t just happen by chance; it was my willingness to intentionally be vulnerable that opened the door to a deeper friendship. And once I did, it gave the other women permission to do the same.

Jesus commands us to love each other in the same way that he has loved us. To do this well requires us to be vulnerable and honest, loving and compassionate. Often, we can lead the way in friendships—whether old or new—by showing love in the same way we have received it from Jesus. This is the way to encourage deep, lasting relationships with others—ones that are rich and long-lasting. The kind that can weather hard times and misunderstandings. Jesus knew that to be in close relationship with others, we would have to love well—and we don’t have to wonder how to do it. He led by example, and he is the model for our lives.

— Kendra

— Today’s Act of Friendship —

Choose to be vulnerable with a close, trusted friend about something you are experiencing or have walked through in the past.