i was thinking about how in my life relationships have helped me with regards to spiritual growth i
experienced it recently alex came to visit me um i had coveted eight weeks ago nine weeks ago now
and was hospitalized with a really severe case of pneumonia and it was it was a little tricky the
first couple of days i was in the hospital and of course you're completely isolated
on the coveted ward and so alex got in as being a pastor but they don't let you have any visitors
i actually had one guy and a full-on a nurse in a full-on like hazmat suit and
he came into my room in the middle of the night i thought it was a vision at first and he was
you know like i help you i was like no don't touch your butt you're gonna kill me because i
have these fat fingers in a suit but but after i was in for a couple of days i got that just loved
my nurses and doctors they um they were lifesavers um but one of the nurses said your friends have
helped us so much because i have some long-term friends in nashville and even though they couldn't
come up on the covet floor they were just i mean they were all in and they were downstairs and
they would bribe nurses to come bring me notes and treats and i mean they were just all in actually
after i was in for a week by the grace of god i got my lungs back and could breathe when we left
the hospitals pouring down rain i had a friend standing in the you know just in the media in the
grassy median outside the hospital just raising her hands she had found out i'm being released and
she's like i don't care if it's storming i'm going to give testimony that god has given her breath
but this nurse said lisa we we don't experience a lot of connection up here because we're so
isolated on the coveted ward and she said the fact that you had community that were they were so
persistent in making sure you were cared for making sure you knew they were there
and i said you know i by the grace of god i have people who when i'm lying flat literally
or figuratively who say we'll grab a corn over mat and we'll raise the roof and lower her to jesus
and she said something that just arrested me she said we have found in this setting in the hospital
that relationship makes a difference between life and death and i thought you know that has
been true of my life spiritually as well there have been seasons in my life that i'm not sure
i could have stayed faithful had it not been for some friends who told me hard truths who were
there in the dark when i didn't look so pretty or i wasn't um doing anything that was laudable
but they just said basically we've got your back you know i love it when peter he's just betrayed
the christ and he's confused at the beginning of john chapter 21 and he says i'm going fishing days
after his betrayal and there's this tiny little verse fragment that i'm like man we could preach
on that for months and it says the other 10 they'd lost judas by them but the other 10 said we'll go
with you you know they didn't chastise him they didn't say you need to go to a 12-step program
and get some training and repent come back to us in a year and we'll see if we let you back in our
god squad they just said we'll go with you one of my favorite um i love all these uh recently passed
away theologians i have platonic crushes on the dead guys but one of my favorites is a guy named
francis schaefer and he wrote our relationship with each other is the criterion the world uses
to judge whether our message is truthful christian community is the final apologetic
how have y'all's friends helped you grow kind of scooted you closer to jesus
oh i wouldn't be here without my relationships and my friendships and my sisterhoods yeah you
know that i have uh they have been the ones to speak truth to me they have been the ones to
step into my messes with me yeah and say you know we may wag a finger and go your picker is off
you need to pray about that and work on that but at the same time they're the same ones that when
it was time for me to move from the farm that i lived on for 20 years or more at the time and
pack up all of my belongings because i was going through a marital status change
and my heart was just so in the dumps and i'm like god i've served you i've
you know i've traveled on your behalf i've written songs about you and never did i lie speaking the
truth of who you were but here i am now you know and i'm a single mom what do i say what do i do
and i wasn't feeling so that i didn't feel like a a post you know but these same friends were there
packing up my junk and my stuff and cleaning out my attic and you know putting stuff in boxes
and labeling them and there i am sitting on the floor after a while just being overwhelmed with
20-something years of stuff you know and i don't know what they're doing they're like we got you
yeah you know they're the same ones who like prayed over me and talked me through and came
over and and sat in the kitchen and just chilled you know and so i wouldn't be here today without
real relationships not just pseudo how many friends do you have on social media and i love
my friends out there you know what i'm saying but to me the the real is those who are actually come
and be there the tangible those who will really like you said earlier carry your mat you know and
take you to jesus and say here's your daughter you know i'm coming with her and right now all she has
are sobs she's hannah right now she didn't have any articulate words she doesn't have a fancy song
but she has some tears yeah can you understand tear ease right now can you understand her heart
you know and and they were diligent to do that with me and for me and i you know i think don't
you love those friends who don't look away when you cry but lean in i mean that's a real friend
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