The friendships we long for require risk... the courage to be vulnerable, communicate what we need, and allow ourselves to be truly known.

We all want friendships where we feel seen, known, and cared for—but building those kinds of relationships isn't always easy. Friendship can bring some of the greatest joy and support into our lives, but it can also be a source of disappointment, insecurity, unmet expectations, and hurt.

In this episode of The Collide Podcast, Willow sits down with therapist and longtime Collide contributor Kellie Furlan for an honest and practical conversation about what it takes to build healthy, authentic friendships.

Kellie explains that at the heart of our relationships are two simple questions: “Do you see me?” and “Do you care?” We are designed for relationship, and especially when life gets difficult, having people around us who can answer those questions with a resounding yes matters more than we may realize.

But healthy friendship isn't about finding one perfect person who can meet every need. Kellie and Willow talk about releasing the expectation of the “everything friend” and learning to appreciate different friends for what they uniquely bring to our lives. As Kellie beautifully puts it, part of friendship is seeing who someone really is—not who we wish they would be—and “forgiving the gap” between our idealized friend and our real one.

They also dig into the courage required to communicate what we want from our relationships, how to navigate friendships that feel one-sided, the importance of boundaries and being able to say no, and why the people we surround ourselves with have such a powerful influence on who we become.

Kellie even challenges us to see friendship as a form of self-care—something worth intentionally investing in through changing seasons of marriage, motherhood, careers, moves, loss, and all the transitions life brings.

Whether you're longing for deeper friendships, navigating disappointment with someone you love, recovering from friendship hurt, or wondering how to be a better friend yourself, this conversation offers practical wisdom for pursuing relationships where you can show up fully as yourself—and give others the freedom to do the same.

Meet Kellie Furlan

Kellie Furlan is a therapist with a master's degree in Marriage and Family Therapy from Seattle Pacific University and a trusted counselor in Collide's counseling network. Through her counseling practice, Kellie helps people rediscover their strength and beauty as they pursue healing and healthier relationships.

Kellie has also contributed to Collide in many ways over the years, writing for the Collide blog, participating on conference panels, and helping create resources for Collide Bible studies. She brings both her professional expertise and her own lived experience to this honest conversation about friendship.

Key Takeaways

• Ask yourself, “Do I feel seen and cared for?” Healthy relationships create space for both people to feel known, valued, and cared about.
• Don't expect one friend to be everything. Different friends bring different gifts to our lives. Letting go of the “perfect best friend” can help us appreciate the relationships we actually have.
• Have the courageous conversation. If you're disappointed or feeling a mismatch in expectations, don't assume the other person knows what you want. Communicate honestly and give them the opportunity to respond.
• Know the difference between wants and needs. What you want from a friendship may not always be something you actually need from that person.
• Pay attention to who influences you. You don't need friends who are exactly like you, but Kellie encourages us to surround our closest circle with people who share our core values.
• Healthy friendships can hold differences. You should be able to be yourself without needing your friend to think, act, or live exactly like you.
• Boundaries make authentic friendship possible. As Kellie says, if you can't genuinely say no, you can't genuinely say yes.
• Friendship is self-care. Life gets busy and seasons change, but meaningful friendships deserve intentional space on our calendars.
• You can learn to trust again. After friendship hurt, you don't have to throw your heart wide open immediately. Kellie encourages us to “test the water slowly,” looking for people who demonstrate shared values and genuine care.

How This Episode Will Encourage You

If you've ever wondered why friendship feels harder than it seems like it should, you're not alone. Healthy relationships require courage—the courage to initiate, communicate, set boundaries, let people be different from us, and risk being known.

This episode will encourage you to stop focusing only on whether other people are being the friends you want them to be and begin asking, What kind of friend am I becoming?

You may not be able to control whether someone reciprocates your friendship in exactly the way you hope, but you can choose to show up authentically, communicate courageously, keep your eyes open to new relationships, and intentionally invest in the people God has placed in your life.

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We're designed for relationship. That's how we, you know, back to attachment. That's how we co regulate one another.

When we are stressed out and things are difficult, we look around and say, ask those questions. Do you see me? And do you care? And if you look around and no one's there, it just increases your sense of anxiety.

Welcome to the Collide Podcast. We're a growing community of everyday chicks colliding with Jesus in our mess, our pain, our joy and our stories. We value showing up as we truly are, so that's what you'll find here.

Walls and masks being torn down so that we can allow Jesus to meet us where we truly are and hear about other women doing the same. We can't wait to collide with.

Welcome to the Collide Podcast.

I'm Willow Weston, the founder and director of Collide and I can't be more giddy to have a conversation on the podcast today than I am about having this one with Kellie Furlan.

Kellie's one of Collide's trusted counselors in our counseling network and we have hundreds of women who have come to us saying yes to God's invitation to walk toward healing. And a huge part of our ministry is walking alongside any woman who needs help and getting her the help she needs.

And when I or or other staff people at Collide pass a woman off to Kellie Furlan, we feel 100% confident that women will be met with wisdom, care and guidance in a way that will bring about life transformation for them.

Kellie has her master's degree in marriage and Family Therapy from Seattle Pacific University and she lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband Carlo, who's a worship pastor in town in Bellingham, Washington. And by the way, I've also seen him riding his bike around town singing opera. One of my favorite moments.

They have three kiddos and she has a counseling practice where she has said she loves to witness the rediscovery of an individual strength and beauty as they take back their lives from the problems that have sought to steal life, kill joy and destroy relationships.

Kellie's written blogs for us on the Collide Blog and been on interview panels at our conferences and helps created helpful resources for our Birds and Lilies Bible study and I think our next one that's coming out soon. And Kellie, thank you so much for now coming on the podcast.

Thank you. I'm happy to be here.

Yeah, it's awesome and I love that we're going to talk about friendship today. We just discovered before we pressed record here, we're the same age.

So this will be a fun conversation about life in this season, but it'll apply to everyone in all these different seasons. On friendships, there's so many proverbs that give us wisdom on this idea of what it looks like to be a friend and have friends.

And I guess I first want to start by asking you in what ways are you seeing women come in and have friendship come up as a struggle in your office?

Yeah, I would say while a lot of people actually, you know, I find it really refreshing that a lot of people actually come in pointing to their friendships as a powerful resource in their time of healing.

And it, that always gives me like great joy to know a person is it has a resource like some close friends or some girlfriends that they can lean on when they're going through, going through difficult times. There are also, you know, times when friendship can be really painful.

And I think one of the things that tends to come up more often than not are issues around reciprocity in friendship. Sometimes feeling like friends don't have time for you.

One person is on kind of the over giving end and not knowing how to ask for what they need in a friendship as well. Especially because I think as Christians we want to be there for people who are struggling.

And so sometimes a relationship, a friendship can get sort of lopsided.

How do you see unreliability come up for people?

I think unreliability, I mean, can take probably different forms, but certainly just sort of wanting to turn. So I'm thinking of attachment, right? Like how bonding and attachment take place.

And, and when we bond, basically we're looking at another person and we're saying, do you see me and do you care? And if you're looking to your friend, do you see me and do you care?

And they're looking away or they're not stepping into the relationship sort of demonstrating, yeah, I do care. Then I think that there's unreliability there that kind of breaks down the connection in the friendship.

And then also there's probably that aspect of unreliability, meaning like friends in your life who have a lot of chaos.

They, you know, and you're sort of getting swept into maybe a more chaotic, less boundaried, less value driven life that you sort of, you know, if you've, if you're with a Friend who says, let's go out to dinner and let's get our toes done and let's do this and you don't have the budget for sort of, in practical terms, leads to ruin.

Well, it goes back to that. Do you see me and do you care? Do you know my current status? Do you know what's going on in my life?

Right. My financial status?

Right.

Can we be friends and be on a budget too?

Yeah. I love those questions. I'm actually kind of feeling convicted right now about the questions. Do you see me and do you care?

And I think even flipping those questions around and in a sense asking, I'm asking myself right now, am I saying to this person, I see you and I care?

Because I think we can ask that question of does this person see me and do I feel cared by them, but also am I showing them that I see them and that I care? Such good questions. Really good questions. What's your advice to people who find themselves in relationships that do feel unbalanced?

Like one person's doing all the work or all the initiating or all the reaching out and the other person is just kind of receiving. Mm.

I think taking some time to sort of deconstruct where that's coming from. Like, what is it in me that has such a difficult time saying no or voicing what it is that I need? Really? I think it's, it's about self understanding.

I don't know if that makes sense.

Yeah, no, it does. I. I think there's this weird thing that happens where in a friendship you can kind of do this sort of tit for tat. I did this.

And then you're kind of waiting for the other person to sort of match you in what you're doing. And when they don't, you can start going into this self analytic mode of, you know, well, do they not care?

Do they not like me as much as I like them?

I see that a lot when, when I see people in a relationship, like, well, we invited that couple dinner, but they never reciprocated, or we've invited them to come to our family vacation, but they've never invited us.

And I see women doing this thing where they want to be loved by someone, they want to have these great, close, deep relationships, and they kind of put themselves out there to experience something and then someone doesn't reciprocate and they either think, oh, this person isn't interested in me, so they walk early when that might not be the case at all, or they start to think, must be Me, there must be something about me that's not worth pursuing. So do you see that at all with. With people who are struggling with it?

Yeah, I do.

And I think the other challenge, in addition to knowing, you know, kind of that self awareness, is being willing to speak up for what it is to be direct about what it is that you, like, hope for and want in a relationship. And I say want because what we want and what we need often get confused.

So taking time to figure out the difference between those two, I'm saying to my friend, I need you to do this, and I need you to do that. Maybe it's actually what you want, but it isn't what you need in order to be in the relationship. And we don't always get what we want. Yeah.

Being direct like, that takes courage.

Yeah.

I mean, can you think of an example where you've had to do that yourself?

Where you got to the place where you're like, I'm going to sit down with this friend and say, hey, like, this is what I'm hoping to experience in this relationship. And how did it go?

I have a good experience of doing that.

Yeah.

I had a friend who is no longer living here in Bellingham, but she was here with her family. Showed up at church, and my sister had said, look out for Kellie. They had gone to college together in California. Look out for Kellie. Say hi.

I got to know her not very well, just loved her, thought she was awesome. And so I just. At that time, I was fairly new to Bellingham as well.

And I think it takes years to start feeling like you actually belong in a community. At least it does for me. And so I hadn't really made any close friends here in Bellingham.

And I just said to her, hey, do you want to be my best friend in Bellingham? And she said, yes.

Wow. She didn't run like, oh, coming on.

Strong with this girl. I know. But she could have, you know.

But she also was looking for that kind of mutual relationship.

Yeah. And I think you go into it somewhat knowing that I knew she was new to town and didn't have a lot of connections, and, yeah, it was worth the risk.

I have a friend right now who she's been going through a major crisis for probably about a year. And she would even say this. Obviously, I'm not going to say her name, but.

Or give any details, but she's even feeling a little bit insecure about how much energy she's taken from me with kind of like, all these phone calls of, like, helping talk her Off a ledge and helping her through today to get to tomorrow and helping talk to her about how she's going to move from her old life into this new one that she's being ushered into and, you know, dealing with anxiety attacks and all these things. And she's kind of saying to me that she feels like, what's that movie? I'm not gonna get her. Is it Groundhog Day? Or the guy pops up all the time.

We're in his counselors on vacation. Oh, what about Bob? Oh, what about Bob? Not Groundhog Day. What about Bob? She brought this up and is like, I feel like the guy. And what about Bob?

Yeah, I am.

And my response was, I know what she's talking about because, I mean, I have been on the phone with her when I'm on vacation and I, you know, there has been a lot of. Of walking alongside her in this season.

But that is exactly what I felt like saying back to her is, hey, like, we're all going to have these seasons where we're going to need our friends to kind of rally around us and help get us from where we're at to where we need to get. And this is that season for you. And I will have a season like that, too. I know that's true.

And also I don't want to have that season, but I know someday I'll have that season. And I know that that's true, that we have these kind of moments in friendships where there's more give than receive.

But what I've started to think about as I'm experiencing her in relationship right now and others like her and when I'll be in a season like hers is that she sort of lived in this season where all her relationships are giving to her and she's receiving because she has nothing to give right now. How does someone like that eventually decide it's time, though, to move back into mutual reciprocation type relationships?

Because I can see where someone could get stuck in being so used to the conversation's always about me. There's no, how are you? What's going on in your life? Like, you know what I mean?

You could get stuck there, but you have to realize at some point out of grief or a really traumatic circumstance, that eventually you're going to have to move back into mutual reciprocity in order to keep healthy friendships.

Right. Because it would. It would begin to cease to be a friendship, really.

Yeah, right, right.

It would become something else.

What's that moment, though, where someone who's been in that season Recognizes I need to move back into like making this about other people and not just about what's going on in my life.

I mean, it might be another one of those courageous conversations where, you know, for, for example, your friend has an awareness.

I'm. I'm the Bob.

I keep showing up.

And that even that having, having an awareness and a sensitivity to how much you're asking of your friends is helpful in sort of sustaining through a season of having a higher need.

When you start to lack that awareness and understanding for other people's limits, then it might be time to sort of begin relying on some more formal supports. So I think of supports in terms of you have family support, you have formal support, you have friend support.

Don't put all of your eggs in one of those baskets. And at different times you don't need the formal support, you just need friends and family.

But there are times when it's time to pull in some formal support.

That's so good. Can you give examples of formal support for people who might not necessarily track.

With know what I'm talking about?

Yeah.

So counselors would be formal support. A mentor would be formal support support. Reaching out to a pastor would be a formal support.

Getting involved in al anon groups or AA groups or celebrate recovery of any type group. Yeah.

I love that you categorize those. Those are all F words, by the way. Friend, family, informal. But I love that. That kind of makes sense that those are a very rounded life.

If we have a little bit of all of those. Yeah, right. And if we have holes, like whole holes in one of those, it can kind of feel like it sometimes if we go through some valley.

Right.

You know, without having any family, you almost have to have a stronger friend. Yeah. Friend, supporter or the formal support or whatever. Or you have no friends because you moved to a new town.

So you might need to move to a new town and find a counselor right away. You know what I mean? Like, that's a. Really, seems like a really balanced way of building support in your life.

Yeah. I think part of that is recognizing that we're designed for relationship.

I mean separate and apart from arguing about introverts and extroverts and those people who say which I'm highly introverted, you.

Know, and, and I'm extroverted.

And here we are in the same room. But recognizing that even the introvert needs relationship, that's how we, you know, back to attachment. That's how we co regulate one another.

When we are stressed out and things are difficult, we look around and Say, ask those questions. Do you see me? And do you care? And if you look around and no one's there, it just increases your sense of anxiety and. And real fear.

Because we're safe. We're safer in numbers. That's. That is our. Our biology. Right?

Or the people that you thought would be there aren't there. That can be really disappointing.

Which I want to talk to you about this idea of unmet expectations and friendships, because I feel like a lot of our friend struggles have to do with maybe us looking for a human to fulfill something that a human want never fulfill. Do you see that? Does that come up often? Oh, yeah.

Yeah. And it seems like what you're kind of referring to is kind of that idea of the one friend who can be there for me at all times.

We love to do all the same things. We. You know, I'm thinking of that Frozen movie with pawns and.

Do you want me to start singing?

Right.

Yeah.

We finish each other's. And he says, sandwiches. And she says, that's what I was gonna say. You know, that kind of friendship that we're looking for.

But really, you know, I think part of this proverb that we're talking about, one of the things that jumps out at me is.

Is the idea that maybe the many friends and sort of looking like, oh, you know, I've got this many friends on Facebook, and I, you know, have all these people that I know who to talk with at church, and I just, you know, feel on top of the social world. But my friends lack depth. Even just having a few close friends that stick closer than a brother can fulfill kind of that longing when there's depth.

Not one person.

Yeah. Why do you think? I mean, let's break that down a little bit. Why? Because I don't see it in men. I don't see men having this kind of.

I don't know if it's an aim. I don't. I don't think it's that intentional.

There's this sort of thing, as women, that we've been told, like, you, you should have a very, very, very best friend. Like, you're one person bestie, like you're saying, and men don't have that. How has that been ingrained in us? Where's that coming from?

Movies? I don't know. I mean, you'd have to explain. Have to somehow go back and say, was this a thing, like, even before media? I don't know.

Yeah, well, I think it was, because I'm 46, and there wasn't social Media. Oh, you mean way back. Way, way back? Yeah, yeah.

I'm thinking Little House on the Prairie. Were they worried about.

Prairie John Boy? Well, and I'm 46 now, you know, so I'm. What, am I old? Am I nearing, like, middle aged, at least? I don't even want to say that.

I still feel very young in spirit, but I have come to this realization that it feels like we think we have to have that one person, everything friend. But I have all these friends that I've realized they all bring different things to the table.

I have one friend that has this beautiful way of serving people, another friend that just can draw the deep out of me that needs to come out. I have another friend that, you know, you could just pour out everything to her, and she would have very little to say in return.

But she's the most faithful, consistent, like, I am here for you and we're doing life together.

Friend.

I have another friend who.

I'm a verbal processor, and she can verbally process with me in a way that helps me see that there might be other stories than the dumb one that I'm playing out in my head. And I. I think in my 20s and 30s, I kept looking for that one friend to be all those things, and I've realized that she doesn't exist.

And I'm not her either. Yeah. And is that okay? And can it be okay?

I think it's beautiful because really, what you're doing with your friends is you're saying, I see you and I care about you. I see what you are, and I see what you're not, and it's okay.

It's kind of forgiving the gap between my idealized friend and my real friend and saying, I'll take her.

Well, speaking of formal support, Kellie, part of my epiphany on this friendship topic was this is years ago, probably 15 years ago, I don't know how long ago.

And I was really disappointed in a friendship that I had that was supposed to be my best friend and ended up going to talk to a counselor about it because I felt so like my expectations weren't met here. This person was supposed to be my best friend, but my definition of what that is and her definition of what that is are so different.

And I couldn't figure out how to reconcile that we really wanted such different things. And I was talking to my counselor, and she finally just looked at me, and she goes. And I will never forget it.

She goes, willow, you're trying to squeeze a banana and get orange juice.

Oh, my Goodness, right?

And I thought, oh, my gosh. So basically I, I, it stopped me and I said, what? She goes, you're trying to squeeze a banana and get orange juice.

You're trying to go to a espresso cart to get a turkey dinner, like you want this deep, like, let's talk, let's do life. Let's hang out all the time. Let's have this sort of communal relationship with our families.

And this person would call their best friend their best friend, but be completely fine hanging out two to three times a year. And those are very different definitions.

So how do you help people with navigating, being in relationships with people who want different things than you, but not just saying, I'm done with you because you want something different than me, or your personality is different than me.

Mind. Yeah. I think you, you have to have the courage to actually have the conversation where you say, hey, what are your expectations?

You know, if you're feeling a mismatch in the expectations, be brave. Say, hey, this is how often I'd like to see you. Now, the danger of that, the risk is that the person says, hey, I don't want to see that much.

But, you know, thanks that you want to spend that much time with me. So I think there has to be sort of this core ability to sort of ground and know.

People are different, their needs are different, their needs for closeness are different. We're all kind of balancing between, you know, this family systems, ideas. We're balancing between our need for connection and our need for autonomy.

And everybody's a little bit different. So providing space for some fluidity. There some difference there.

But if you don't communicate, you know, your preferences, how's the person going to know?

Right.

And you don't give them the oppo. You don't give yourself the opportunity to grow up either and say, okay, it can be good to see each other two or three times a year.

She's still a good friend, right?

Oh, I had the conversation like, I've been expecting you to be an orange, but you're a banana. She was like, and I've been expecting you to be a banana, but you're an orange.

How much of our relational anxiety do you think comes from choosing the wrong people to be our companions?

I mean, I can't Help but think of adolescence like during this time. I feel like a lot of times the friends that we choose during adolescence can be really powerful friendships. A lot of memories.

I was just reading about how our brains are growing during that time. And it's part of the reason why experiences that we have during that period tend to have very salient memories.

A lot of emotional emotion attached to them. If we're hurt during those time periods, the hurt is deep and long remembered. And if we have something positive, you know, it's.

It's deep and it's long remembered and the attachment is strong.

But.

But during that season when risk taking is also a lot higher and sort of logical thinking is not well formed, it makes a big difference on who your friends are in terms of what you're exposed to.

Yeah. Yeah.

Well, in bringing up adolescence, I'm just thinking about the teenagers in my life that I know and truly, like, a lot of anxiety is caused by what's going on in the group of people that they're around.

I've seen my own kids where they can hang out with this group of people over here, and because, you know, they feel comfortable in their own skin, they can just belly laugh and be complete dorks and have a blast and there's no drama and all as well. And then I've seen that very same kid go and hang out in another group of kids where they were invited into.

And all that I hear back is all the drama, all the drama that played out that night on social media, all the drama in between relationships. Like a lot of, you know, you look at those two examples of these companions.

Over here, you don't have drama because you feel like you can be fully who you are. And over here, all these people aren't quite sure they can be fully who they are, and people are doing dumb stuff to try to prove their worth.

And so then there's all this drama coming outsideways.

Right. Which happens in adult scenes too.

Yeah.

Friend group. Is that okay to admit?

No, I'm laughing because it's, like shocking to me how we're in our 40s or 50s or whatever age and we're still doing. We're still doing these weird friendship drama things. Yeah.

People that you want to have your house all tidy for, and you're scrambling around making sure everything's clean.

Clean for some reason, which is the teenage version of being popular and cool and looking, you know, like you've got it all together versus having the friend who's like, I'm here. And you're like, don't trip on the laundry. And beware of the dog.

Actually, help me fold it.

Yeah, yeah. And there's a comfortability and a peace that just says, I can be me and my house can look the way it looks. And my car. Oh, goodness.

You know, a true friend is someone you can invite into your car.

Oh, we should put our cars side by side and see who wins our competition. This idea, I heard you reference it a couple times. Now you talk about the power of a friend or the power of a friendship.

How do you sort of measure if you have a healthy friendship? What are some of the signs that this is a healthy friendship? I feel this way when I'm with these people.

I think. I think feeling like you can be yourself when you're with your friends and even if they're not exactly like you. I have friends who,.

You know, they.

Drink alcohol and a lot of people do. I don't. Some people feel really uncomfortable if I don't, if I'm in that scene. And then I have other friends who. It's like, Kellie's fine.

She's not going to drink alcohol and that's her thing and whatever. So I think it's not. It's that you're understood and that you're accepted even when there's difference and the friendship can hold it.

Both people are, you know, secure enough in who they are that we don't have to be the same in order to feel like we're okay.

Yeah, I love that the friendship can hold the differences. That's so good. Let's talk about agency. Just I don't know for a hot second, because I feel like in this proverb, God's giving us a choice.

Like, he's saying, choose well, if you want to be wise, walk with the wise. And I wrote this down thinking about this. Who do you want to be? Like, if you want to be wise, then hang out with wise people.

If you want to be compassionate, hang out with compassionate people. If you want to grow demon God, have some people who are growing deep in God.

It just seems like a really great self evaluation question to ask yourself who you want to be and then surround yourself by those kind of people.

And I'm just wondering, like, is there some sort of helpful friendship awareness exercise to help us really sort of stop and pause and look at who we're surrounding ourselves by and if they're who we want to be?

Or how do you help people take a good hard look at who they've chosen to surround their lives with and then help Them see the pain that that's causing if they've made, you know, poor choices and picking their, you know, amigas, like, what. What are some helpful ways to determine, like, hey, maybe who I want to be isn't reflected in who I'm surrounding myself by.

Right.

Okay, so here it gets to something kind of, I think, a nuance where we're talking about being able to find friends, where the friendship can hold the difference in terms of personality and things like that.

But I think that being aware of your core values and surrounding yourself with people who share similar core values can help you stay on track with where you're headed in life. It doesn't mean that we hate people who have different core values than we have or something like that, but I'm talking about your.

That more intimate circle that's so good. Stop and recognize your core values. What are they? I wonder how many of us could just do that right now and list off, these are my core values?

And how many of us would be like, can you give me a couple months?

I need to totally do an overhaul of my life, but to know these are my core values, and I have to make sure that I have people in place who are living out these same core values. It doesn't mean everyone in my life has to have those.

But if you don't have any people who are living out your core values in your life, it seems like this proverb is saying you're gonna end up like the people you surround yourself by.

Right. Like, I think of negativity. So if you have a core value as a Christian, that we're all created in God's image and we all have value.

If you are around people that are tearing down other people a lot, like, there's a lot of negativity and judgment and. Yeah, just negativity. We know that being around negative people kind of you start to see the negative, you start to say the negative.

You start to not be focused on seeing God's image and the value in the people that you're interacting with. You're seeing what they're doing wrong. You're seeing their sloppy car. You're seeing the way, you know, whatever.

Whatever it is you're choosing to judge.

Yeah, but as you're talking, I'm just struck by the power of our influence on each other.

Yeah,.

What do you think it looks like to Be a friend with Jesus.

You know, I actually, I read that scripture recently and I was thinking about. Well, he says what it means that. That he sort of let them in on the inside. Like we have the inside.

So.

Scoop. I forget how the scripture finishes. Do you have it written down?

I think it's when he goes on to say, or actually was before he said, love each other as I've loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. And I no longer call you servants, but I call you friends. Right?

Is that what you're talking about?

It's after that where he talks about sort of what about basically that I've told you what my father's up to. Like, you're no longer in the dark. Like, we're.

You're a part of my big story, my big plan, wherein, you know, what's going on and how amazing is that? To feel like you are a part of and made aware of Jesus's big plan.

That's awesome. What does it look like for you to be his friend daily? Like, on a daily basis?

Well, you talk to your friends, right? Yeah.

Yeah, totally.

Yeah.

Because I think we kind of over formalize Jesus. Like, do.

Do we really Jesus and I, I do this, but I also do the other, which is like one of my prayers when I speak in the last couple years now has been because I still, like, even though I do it all the time, I still am like, why am I doing this? I get sick to my stomach, nervous, all those things. And my prayer has kind of changed. It's not so much like, help me not to feel that way.

It's more like, help me to enjoy you while I get to do this. And. But then I'm also like, we'll just be driving in my car and I'm on my way to a meeting and I just start being like, hey, can.

Can you help me out with this one? Or like very much kind of casual. But I think we do a lot of like.

No, Jesus thinks that, like, Jesus wants us to have these really formal, long prayers with these and thousand if we talk to him a lot, which. Who's to say that he isn't like us, where he's like, all right already, I get it.

Like, you've already talked to me about that for 30 minutes or five minutes or whatever, you know?

Yeah.

So what does it look like kind of in that you talking to your friend Jesus on a daily basis?

This look like? Well, to me.

I mean, for me, I think it's Similar to kind of what you're describing of just being, having that awareness of his presence and feeling like you can, you can be yourself. Right. We talked about being authentic. You're not going to hide from the creator of the universe what's going on in your heart.

It says he, he understands us better than we understand ourselves.

And so sometimes I think communicating what's on our heart, but then also listening to the Holy Spirit and saying, God, you do know me even better than I know myself. Show me, reflect back to me what you see. That can be a powerful exercise to just say what do you see right now?

Which is also a powerful exercise to do with Jesus and your other friends.

I am just thinking about how we sort of make our friendship with God much more about the serious parts of life and kind of not the I'm gonna invite you in to play Monopoly with my kids. Like let's like be with us in this space.

And I wonder, even I'm self evaluating as I'm talking, like how much have I invited my own children into a faith sets? We pray at dinner time, you know, we pray in the car when we get a phone call about something sad.

We talk to God when we need provision, we talk to him when someone's in the hospital. But do we just, can we giggle and recognize like he's in our space? Yeah, because that's what we do with friends. And Jesus is calling us a friend.

And you know, that's the difference I think between Christianity and a lot of other people religions is the type of conversational relationship that you have with your friend Jesus. Because most other religions it is more of a I need this from you God divine person.

I do this sacrifice, I go through these steps, I hope you give me what I want or what I need versus this relationship that we have with a friend in our Heavenly Father, Father and Jesus, that is in all, all times, all seasons.

Yeah, well, and relationships have give and take and I think oftentimes our relationship with God is us. Take, take, take. Can you do this? Can you do this? Here's my, you know, wish list. Here's the things I need you to do for me. Thanks.

Bless it, you know, but if you actually did that with any human, in any friendship you ever had, that is a short lived friendship.

Right.

So it's really interesting, I'm curious what you'd say about this. What do you think have been the damaging ideas we've been invited into about what it looks like to be a friend with God.

That. Okay, that's interesting. It Makes me just think about.

I suppose the danger of what we're talking about is the pendulum swinging to the other side, where it's sort of my buddy God, where there is a lack of maybe reverence for a holy God, that we're just chums and he's okay with whatever I'm okay with, because that's what friends do.

Mm.

Not reliable friends. Right. Reliable friends don't allow you to spend more money than you have in order to have fun. And friend Jesus doesn't do that either.

You know, there are boundaries and limits for your own good. But I suppose that's probably the danger that would come to my mind is that you would lose. You would lose a right relationship. Yes.

There's a friendship, and there's also. There's also hierarchy.

It's interesting as you're talking, because I'm thinking sometimes the things that are emphasized in our faith that we're invited into relating to God in these certain ways that can be damaging are a lot out of fear. Like, I think maybe there's a spectrum of Christianity that would, you know, go, oh, I'm so afraid that if I, you know, teach this.

This idea of being a friend with God, people are going to take it to this degree.

So I'm going to err over here on the holy God, you know, the veil, the, you know, reverence, the supernatural divine being that, you know, you can't see his face. And. And that's what I'm going to invite you into. Kind of this, like, fear of God. And then other people are like, oh, you know, I grew up with that.

I can't do that. And they've swung all the way over here to, like, my buddy Jesus that I take with me everywhere I go, but.

And he doesn't judge me.

Yeah. And I have no, no reverence for, like, his mystery and his might and his power and the things he calls me to be obedient in. And I.

It's an interesting idea that, like, we are called friends of God, but He's also our Lord and our Savior, and He is judge and he is good, and he is full of grace. He's all of these things in full, and we get to experience him fully as he is.

But we kind of pick one aspect of who he is, which we probably do in our relationships with each other sometimes, too. Right. We want to take the one thing that we like, and then everything else maybe needs to change for us.

Yeah.

I don't know. Hey, I think it's interesting because Jesus charged us with These big friendship goals.

He said in John 15, as we mentioned a few minutes ago, that he said, love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one. This then he laid down his life for his friends.

And years ago, I read Peter Scazzero's couple of his books, Emotionally Healthy Church. I think it was an emotionally healthy spirituality, which I loved. Have you read that? Yeah. So good.

And in one of those, it was kind of an epiphany for me. He actually challenges you that you can't lay down your life for your friends if you don't have one to lay down.

So how much of self care plays into how healthy your friendships are?

Yeah, well, I think, I mean, you kind of summed it up right there that if you, and the way I like I say it to clients is that if you can't, if you can't really say no, you can't say yes.

So unless you're in a, in a position where you, you can say no to somebody, you're not really in a position that you can say yes to their need that yes is coerced, whether it's out of your own kind of.

Guilt.

And feeling of expectations or their expectations, but in any kind of relationship, in order to show up authentically and you've got to be able to say no. So you, I mean, in that sense, that is taking care of yourself.

It's knowing that at all times your identity, really your, your identity and strength as a person is centered on that ability of to have choice, to say yes and no to things.

That's good. I needed to hear that there, Kellie. Another proverb about friendship is 27:9 that says perfume and incense bring joy to the heart.

And the pleasant of a friend springs from their heartfelt advice. So here wisdom suggests that the beauty of a friendship is the counsel that comes from one friend to another.

Why do you think counsel from a friend is so good? And what are some of the healthy ways you'd recommend to give advice to a friend?

Well, first of all, I think ask if they want it first, like listen and then say, you know, would you like some ideas or would you like some feedback? And just kind of know whether they, whether they want it or whether they don't want it.

The other thing that I think is beautiful about advice from a friend is sometimes as your friend kind of gives you advice or gives you feedback, you sort of, you solidify your own leanings when you're confused about something. I want to ask you about this. I'm not sure if I should do this or if I should do this. And they come back and you're like, no, no, no.

Now I have clarity of the direction that I do want to go. So, I mean, that's a situation where you're not exactly following what your friend says, but you're inviting that counsel.

I think there's also a scripture that talks about that there's wisdom in many advisors. Not just pinning it all on one person, but you can begin to gather wisdom as you sort of spread the net wide and get feedback from all places.

Is, yeah, I can't make decisions without, like, large decisions just for my own peace of mind to sleep at night. I. I need to feel like I've asked people who are wise, and they're all kind of saying, go in the same direction.

And if that's not happening, it really puts pause into the direction I think I should go, which is, I'm grateful that that's in scripture because it kind of gives me confirmation on where I think the Lord's leading me to make decisions.

It's good to have the ability to slow down.

Yeah.

When it comes to making decisions.

Yeah, it is. Proverbs 17, 17 says, A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.

What do you think it looks like for us to walk in friendships through seasons and not four seasons? What I mean by that is I think I see a lot where we walk with people until something gets hard, and then we maybe do.

You know, I've talked about this on the podcast before, but kind of like the slow fade, like, oh, this is too hard, or conflict comes up or something, and so we're friends for a season, but then it kind of falls off. But what does it look like to do. Do life through all the seasons because.

And I guess I'll add to this, when I was thinking about it, especially as women, I'm realizing being in women's ministry, having women on staff, I mean, women experience more transitions and seasons, I think, in general, than men, because we have children that come out of our body. We don't have children, and we wanted to. And we have miscarriages, or we adopt, or we have.

We choose to not work and stay home with our kids, and then we have to start our career all over again, or we're faced with this decision of, do we keep our career and we, you know, raise our children, and then we're juggling this whole crazy season of I don't have time for myself or any of my old friendships, or there just seems to be all of these different seasons. And I think what I'm watching in women is that a lot of women are having a hard time tracking with the people they once were close to.

Well, when the seasons are shifting and so the friendships are dying off and they're becoming friends with, say, like the people on the sideline of the soccer team, which is great and beautiful in and of itself. But I was sitting in a room full of women a couple years ago from a church that we were doing clay conference at, and it was women leaders.

And I said, tell me what you're seeing in women's lives around you. And almost all of them that were older than me, they were emptying that stage about.

And they all said this general sense was, I don't know who my friends are anymore because I just spent the last 18 years of my life raising children where my friends organically became who my kids, friends, parents were. But now my kids are gone and I don't know who my people are. So do you see what I mean?

How, like, how do we figure out how to be in friendship throughout all the seasons and not just for a season?

Yeah, I think, I think part of.

That is.

The self care piece and recognizing that friendship is a part of self care.

And so if you have friends that you want to have in that intimate circle, and I think it's important that people figure out, you know, three, four, five people that they could put into a circle where they invest in those friendships through the seasons, you know, regardless of whether you're going through life together side by side in the same order, so to speak, that you are committing to those, to those friendships. Because you're right.

When you sort of get through that sort of arc of life and things start to slow down, you can find a real lack of friend supports.

The idea that friendship is self care is something I've never heard before. And I bet you think that sounds so basic. I'm assuming you think, oh, that's, that's a simple concept. But I'm. Friendship is self care.

I mean, I'm thinking when I first had my babies, like, self care is, oh, I figured out how to do a shower, you know, and so you, you put the shower back in and then you're like, I figured out how to do the car seat and leave the house once a day and like, do the target thing even when my kid is like, exploding, you know, poop out the diaper and my breasts are imploding with milk. And like, I figured out how to, like, manage that, like, so self care was like shower and then Target.

And then you're like, oh, self care is, you know, twice a week. My husband comes home and I can go work out at a gym. And I don't know in my.

I, I absolutely agree with you, but I don't know how many women go, I think we do, oh, working out of self care or I got to get to the doctor. How many women say, friendship is self care? Schedule it in your schedule.

Like you would schedule working out or going to the doctor or the dentist or whatever else and actually be intentional about it.

And I think that, that there are friends out there who are grieving those women who are not being a part of that collective women experience that are sort of lost, go through a life transition, have a baby, move. And there's a group of friends. I hear about this all the time. A group of friends getting together and so.

And so isn't coming anymore because now they're in a new relationship or now they're working all the time, or now they're all about their kids. Like, those friends are grieving the loss of their inclusion as well.

Yeah, there's so many shifts because I was thinking divorce or even.

I've heard now that our kids are teenagers, there's some families that don't hang out with each other anymore because the teenagers completely played Legos and tag and, you know, backyard trampoline thing. But now that they're teenagers, they're like these awkward, like, we don't know how to talk to each other friends.

And so the families don't hang out anymore. There's just all these transitions. But I love the idea of really being intentional around.

These are the people that you want to invest in and be friends through the seasons. And not just a season. You're going to have to get intentional about it. Man, I got to open up my calendar after this podcast.

I remember years ago, I had a boss named Jim, and he was preaching on friendship, and I loved what he said. He said, you have to be a friend to have a friend.

How much time do you think we spend disappointed in the ways our friends aren't carrying their end of the deal? Meeting our expectations versus how much should we be leading the way, being a friend and emulating what we hope to experience in return?

Well, I think we can only. We can only focus on what we're doing. Like, we can only control the kind of friend that we are.

We can bravely communicate the kind of friend that we're hoping to have. And then I think in some Ways releasing it to the Lord in terms of bringing that friend who will demonstrate some reciprocity.

Keeping your eyes and your ears open and listening and attentive. Sometimes we get fixed on, I want it to be this person or I want it to be that person or I want it to be that group.

And then we overlook, I think potential relationships where more reciprocity would be possible because we're, we don't have our eyes and ears open to those women.

And when you find one, I think count it as a treasure and hold onto it. You know, if each one of us has 1, 2, 3 women like that in our lives, we're, we're lucky people, you know, hey, for those who sort of.

Have been hurt in friendship and they want, they want the kind of life giving friendship that we're talking about, what's your advice for them on how to kind of get back up after being wounded and keep hoping for healthy friendships?

Well, maybe I'd just go back to keeping your eyes and your ears open, you know, for those people who come your way that are, they share a similar value set.

Maybe you see qualities in them that show that they can see and care about others and it's okay to test the water slowly, you know, to sort of open, open heartedly but with caution, kind of go in and learn to trust again.

Yeah. Yeah, that's good. My closing question for you is, as you look at Jesus colliding with people in the New Testament, how do you see him?

What are the characteristics you see him in? How he friends people, be friends people,.

How he be friends people? You know, it seems like he doesn't necessarily go for the popular crowd.

That's the truth.

He's willing to and attentive. His eyes are open, his ears are open for the people that are coming his way who are open to him.

So I think he's available for friendship and people who are also available notice.

That's good. That's awesome. So true. Bottom thank you for hanging out on the podcast talking about friendship.

Thank you.

Yeah. How can people connect with you?

Well, I have a website and so if people wanted to contact me that way, it's BellinghamFamilyCounseling.com and there's other contact information on there in terms of my. I have a work phone number that people would be more than welcome to call and leave a message for me and get back to you.

Cool. That's awesome. And you guys, thank you so much for jumping on today. Friendship is a subject that applies to all of us.

And I know that I have a lot to learn in the topic of friendship. And I'm grateful for the people that God has placed on my journey, and I bet you are, too.

And praying that those of you who feel like you're still searching for some community, and some people, I'm. I'm trusting that God has a plan and he's going to give you some people to walk alongside you in the place that you're at. We'll catch you next week.

And in the meantime, if you want to check out anything about Collide, you can. And check out our website at wecollide.net. And you can also find us on Instagram and Facebook at We Collide.

And yeah, we will collide with you in a week or so.