I used to flirt with friendship (I'm referencing friendship as a general concept, not individual friends. I didn't walk around flirting with all of my friends, cause that would've just been... awkward). I would see the f-bomb coming from a distance, and, not wanting to give too much of myself away, I'd wave and wink and maybe give it my name, knowing fully well that I wouldn't follow through on anything. It was safe and shallow and reassuring. Reassuring that no one was able to see the real me, for if they did, they wouldn't even want to flirt anymore. This was the life, right? Flirting is fun, it's dangerous and sexy and makes you feel alive.
But that's just it. I didn't feel alive. I was dead, wasting away, always wanting more than just that far-away wave that revealed about .000001% of who I really was.
That all changed two summers ago. I worked at a Christian summer camp with a group of about ten other staffers, day in and day out, dawn to dusk, for three whole months. Obviously, you get to know your co-workers pretty well. Soon enough, they morph from mere co-workers to friends and then friends to brothers and sisters. There was no room for flirting from afar - this was up close and personal. This was raw and gritty and in my face, nearly suffocating me with the sheer power that true, deep friendship had. It's like God just decided to take a few grenades and drop them straight into the heart of my cardboard perspective on friendship. Hey, it was already dead anyway. He just cleared away the ashes so that it was safe for me to step out and actually begin to show my true colors.
I believe that the best kinds of friendships are the ones that make you bleed. The best kinds of friends are the ones that get you to open up, and to pour out not only the bright and cheery parts of your heart, but those dark and desperate parts too, the spots covered in scabs that will bleed pools of crimson immediately upon picking.
But that's just what happens when a real friend comes into your life. They pick those scabs off and are with us as we bleed, humbled and naked and vulnerable, not to mock us or coil back in disgust, but to be a support through the pain and then help us stand when the bleeding's finally stopped and our legs are all wobbly and we're dizzy. It's only then that true growth can start to happen.
Christ-centered friendships are called to be so much more than stupid flirt-fests that never get past the outer skin. We are layered, complex and intricate beings, each with an incredible depth that tries to mirror even just a split-second-shadow of the depth of God. Which makes sense, seeing that we're created in his image. And he obviously didn't make us to go at uncovering that depth alone. For I've found that when I help someone else scale the rocky depths of their heart, hanging onto them tightly as they fall and get cut up and reveal their open wounds, I also understand a bit more about myself. It's a beautiful parallel system that God created here - friendship isn't only about one person learning all about another. It's about two people coming to terms with their identities, together as friends, but also as individuals. We often learn the most about ourselves by learning about other people.
And it was that, that real transparency with people that ended up being so much scarier and dangerous than flirting ever was.
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