Home Team-Flat Tire People
Everybody has a home team: It’s the people you call when you get a flat tire or when something terrible happens.
It’s the people who, near or far, know everything that’s wrong with you and love you anyways. These are the ones who tell you their secrets, who get themselves a glass of water without asking when they’re at your house. These are the people who cry when you cry. These are your people, your middle-of-the-night, no-matter-what people.” ― Shauna Niequist, Bittersweet: Thoughts on Change, Grace, and Learning the Hard Way
Middle of the night people. Flat tire people. Cry when you cry people. If you had a flat tire who would you call? When knife in your soul news invades your life, who comes to mind first? I know we as Christ-Followers are reminded to run with arms wide to him.
But, honestly- sometimes I want Jesus with skin on… in the room with me.
I need a really good friend next to me in the moment when myheart is breaking or I have amazing news to shout about.
I am thankful for the precious friends God has placed into my world. They are beyond priceless to me.
Friendships like these do not just happen. They are birthed through time and pain and laughter and nights around a fire laughing and honesty spoken through tears cloaked by the smoke that comes from the fire and hidden in a heart.
Growing up my sweet mom often reminded me “to have a friend you have to be a friend.” I understood her words to say, be kind, be friendly and be nice.
Today those same words ring with much greater texture and depth.
Love and laugh deeply
Don’t quit on someone
They will hurt you and you will hurt them
Forgive quickly
Invest your life into another human
Others matter
Friends are a priceless treasure
Be a friend that doesn’t give up
Eat together
Work together
Celebrate wildly when life is good for them
Hold them close when it is hard
Let them hold you when your heart breaks
Friendships take time- lots of it
They are worth it all
Pick them up when they have a flat tire
Tell them your secrets. Trust them. Don’t tell anyone else their secrets. Be trustworthy.
Be thankful often for the gift of a good friend.
It cost much to be a friend.
It is worth it.
Share your friendship stories in the comments section below. I would love to hear how your story-
- How have YOU celebrated friendship in your life.
- What do you value most in a friend?
- What have you found to be the hardest thing about being a good friend?
Blessings!!
Thanks for a great post, Nancy. Like the saying goes, “A friend in need, is a friend indeed.” Someone we can count on. Someone who will be there when we need them so desperately, and it works both ways.
What a beautiful sharing of your heart. I have had to leave friends many times, in different seasons. It makes me appreciate them in a way that only saying goodbye can sometimes teach us. A few years ago, after our last move, I resolved to not make any more close friends here. That way, I reasoned, saying goodbye will be easier. I am glad God knew better than me and sent them to me in spite of myself. Surprisingly, we are still here…and so are my local flat tire friends
My daughter and her family live in Phoenix… too mamy miles from our home in Michigan- we treasure the times we see them in a way being with them daily would not bring- but still miss them mega bushels.
Thank you for stopping by 🙂
I love the title of this post! So true, you realize your true friends in life when the going gets tough. I must say, my best friend is my husband. I know he’d be by my “flat tire side” in an instant if I called. Of course, the fact that he’d also fix the tire is an added benefit.
I value my friends mostly because they have seen me at my worst and still support me and I do the same for them. Having said that some of my best friends are my six sisters they are my blessings.
Agreed- at our best and our worst- friends that stick closer than a brother- and will answer the phone in the middle of the night… when we need them 🙂
Blessings-
Nancy
Such a beautiful post. Who can you call in the middle of the night? I have a few friends like that, and they are such an extravagant blessing. “Life has no blessing like a good friend.”
Kathleen- if I have these friends numbering on one hand- I am most grateful!
Thank you for stopping by- Blessings! Nancy