Friends see your messes and love you anyway. They look past your misgivings and remind you of who you really are, so that on the hard days, you can remember, too.

Long term friends do this especially well.

They’re the ones who have known you as your past self…immature, confused, still searching for a sense of who you really are and who you are called to become. They can appreciate just how far you’ve walked down bumpy or broken up roads, and they recall memories of just enough of those roads that, when brought to the surface, their memory grows your own appreciation of how far you’ve come.

Long standing friends understand your backstory without a need to dig deep into old junk and heartache.

They feel like home.

Growing up is a painful process sometimes. Even at thirty four, I’m still doing it…still working to become more of who I’m meant to be and less of the sinful self I actually am. I want to be more open, more gracious. Less particular, less intense. I want to be passionate about my first loves, but not over the top. I want to champion the people I love and not compete.

The best friendships reflect my strengths and my misgivings back to me, refining me and making me think more deeply all of the time. This is a crazy gift I can’t replace with anyone or anything else. I’d never want to.

In these later days of pregnancy, when my energy is wearing thin and my patience, even thinner, I am craving the presence of these dear-to-me friendships even more. I realize this every time I’m with them, even though I also walk away wincing at the moments when I got crabby or whiny, when I was short with my kids in front of them, or when I complained about any aspect of this pregnancy even though I really am unbelievably grateful to be right in this season, right where we are.

Thank goodness for grace.

Today we spent the afternoon with a group of people who have known our family a long, long time. These are lifelong friendships that grow and change as we do, and as our families do, too. At one point I looked out over a sea of “littles” who just aren’t all that little any more. The eldest turns nine in a few months.

Jedis. Buddies. Evidence of tried and true friendships and God’s sweet grace in our lives.

In this group, our family is bringing up the rear with baby number three (and any subsequent babies, should they be in our future), and it is both beautiful and strange to be the last one pregnant in this mix of amazing friends. The history that each one of our kiddos represents is significant and deep…major life changes surrounding each one of them, and then all of the chapters that have fallen in between.

And my, these kids are amazing. I look at each one of them and think just how fortunate we are that they are healthy, smart, funny, kind, resilient children who are each growing to love the Lord and who genuinely love each other, too. They’re all different in so many ways, and it’s so humbling to be among them.

Their interwoven lives are some of the sweetest fruit that comes from long term, deeply committed friendships like ours. I’m so thankful.

The baby bean is going to join a dynamic crew. He or she will be snuggled and cuddled and doted on and carried around as the baby of the bunch, but no less a part of the mix than the rest–only added to the number in the way that close friends embrace each others’ lives and families and celebrations and messes.

Only in the very best ways.

I need a lot of grace these days. I suppose I always do, but especially as baby grows and I feel clumsy and tired and more worn around the edges of myself than I’d like to be. Without friends like these, I’d be floundering, for sure. But it feels like we’re linking arms and weathering the hard with the good in all areas of our lives instead. What a gift as we each change and grow, and as our families do, too!

so humbled and grateful,

mm