“Are you okay?”
Class has ended for the day, and I’m walking past the library toward my house when I see one of my best friends travelling in the opposite direction. I pause to greet him, white snow shining in the peripheral and wet asphalt beneath my boots. In an instant he reads my eyes and then asks me this question. Though the event he is attending begins in five minutes, he takes a moment to refer to a previous conversation and ask what’s up, what’s wrong.
Sometimes you need someone to “get” you, to understand you without your having to explain anything. That person abides on the same metaphorical page as you, and that person knows how to read your eyes or your body language. He or she has walked through enough life with you to do that. You can trust that friend with anything, and in times of heartbreak or fatigue, you can choose to speak, cry or simply sit with him or her. You spend hours laughing together as well. Do you have a friend like this?
I have a few of those friends, my core. I couldn’t do life well without them. These friends stick closer than a brother or a sister, and they “get” me in a way that no Prince Charming could at the moment.
God brought us together fairly randomly: I met Samuel through a class, Ili and Layla in the dorm and Josh in the cafeteria. Our social circles overlapped, and enough of our interest aligned so that we grew close and could understand each other at a deep level.
“We do life together.”
We support each other and need each other in order to stay encouraged and motivated.
I’m eternally thankful to God for my core group at Wheaton, my best friends here. From the outside we may look like an unlikely bunch, being from all different races and cultures, but our hearts are united through Christ Jesus and our love for his beautifully diverse kingdom.
We comfort each other in times of pain or sorrow. I rejoice that we can call each other at all hours or crash at one another’s homes without warning. We are honest with each other and do not have to pretend to be perfect or put together. (Though Ili still doesn’t “wanna be like that [insert a face I once made].” 😉 ) We dine on kimchi soup, Thai salad and chocolate peanut butter shakes; we laugh at the ugly faces we make to underline our points in conversation; we discuss everything from relationships to race. We do life together.
Perhaps most importantly, we pray together and encourage each other in God’s Word. My best friends exemplify both the peace and passion of Jesus. Because they are filled with God’s Spirit, they are patient as Jesus is, and they persevere as Jesus does.
“Are you okay?”
Not everybody means this question, but I’m grateful that my best friends do. They take the time to care, and I am honored to do the same for them. We live in a sinful, broken, corrupt world, but we have each other, and we have hope in Christ Jesus.
We are not alone. And with the family bonds we have through Christ, we will be more than okay.
katelyn skye bennett 