Shaping a Friendship Heart from Your Place of Pain

When you’re healing from a divorce, friendships become a crucial aspect of your personal and spiritual healing. But friendships among women are problematic to say the least. I have heard more times than I can count, I just don’t have female friends or jealousy always seems to get in the way. Today, I have wonderful female friends who have helped me profoundly in my healing and spiritual growth, but I too have struggled to maintain friendships that last the test of time. When encountering a crumbling marriage, many women feel like they are in short supply of true friends to travel alongside them on the long road of suffering and healing.

Spiritual Friendships are Rare

I can share some insights on this topic, lessons I’ve learned after surviving the dark tunnel that led to my divorce. Deep friendships are a rare treasure. As understood by the ancient Greeks, the spiritual element in a deep friendship mirrors the divine. Most friendships are alliances that we form with people from our workplace or even church. We are bound together by shared interests, political views, and even the same enemies. These surface friendships help to shape our identity, to centralize our power and status in our communities. They are quid pro quo relationships: I do something for you, and you do something for me. Alliances often fracture under pressure. Survivors of tragedy tell us that personal heartbreak led them to a better understanding of who their true friends were. In the midst of pain and suffering, we are erratic, angry, irrational people. Pain turns us into self absorbed, ugly criers. In this state, we’re difficult to love. How can we blame anyone for running away? Those only interested in alliances will do just that. Those of us in the midst of a crisis are the walking wounded, desperately trying to stop the bleeding of a gaping wound with a flimsy tissue. The intensity and realness of your crisis may simply cause too much strain on some friendships. It doesn’t necessarily make them fake friends. Most likely, they’re just not ready or able to enter the realm of your pain. But the spiritual friend arrives to take the journey through the heart of darkness with you. They are a beacon of light sent to encourage you in a sea of despair.

Love Your Friends and Appreciate Where They are At

When you’re divorced, time has opened up in your social calendar. The time you would have invested in your marriage is now available for the exploration of new hobbies, but your married friends may not have the same luxury of time you do to invest in friendships. They still have a spouse and their marriage relationship should be their priority. They aren’t bad friends. In fact, they may be just like you, before the tornado came and swept your world into chaos. They have different priorities and different life circumstances. Even in our pain and brokenness, we need to allow space in a friendship and make accommodations when needed. God will send the right people into our lives at the right time. I encourage you not to pass judgement on the friends that you feel have failed you in your time of need. It is okay to let friends go, but leave the door open. Time and circumstances change and we never know how God is working in our lives and the lives of others till His work is done.

Spiritual Friendships Are Rooted in Christ-like Ideals

If you’ve lost your spouse, you are likely longing for something deeper, more substantive in your friendships. Most of us are old enough to understand that tragedy can strike anywhere and anytime; we need true friends. How do we form these deeper bonds? Jesus said in John 15:12-13, “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” At the heart of this teaching is the idea of sacrifice, laying down one’s life. Humility lives at the center of Jesus’ teaching and requires a bit of hard work. Spiritual friendships are defined by a deep sense of caring for another person and putting their needs above your own. This is the friend that holds your hand when you cry and calls you even two weeks later, just to check in. They’re ready to come over at the drop of a hat, but they also set firm boundaries. They are there to lead you on a better path, not to enable you in your grief and despair.

Seek God Before Seeking a Friend

In the healing stages after the separation from your spouse you’re most likely still recovering from a full fledged attack on your confidence and self-worth. If your husband has left you for another woman, you have experienced a trauma that has left you deeply insecure. Friendships can be a double edged sword. On one level you’re craving the intimacy and care of a friend and on the other, you may feel threatened to your very core or even jealous of other women who have strong marriages or seemingly trauma free lives. You may not actually be wanting the best for your friends at all because you’re still metaphorically lying on a bathroom floor in the fetal position. You may be secretly hoping that your fragile ego finds affirmation in witnessing a friend endure similar hardships to what you experienced. In other words: you’re secretly hoping they fall flat on their face. Somehow you think this will make you feel better.

This is the challenge of the wounded. Those of us overwhelmed by the feeling that life has been deeply unfair, must struggle to release our bitterness before it destroys every good thing in our lives. I needed divine help on this one. The maxim, hurt people hurt people, could not be more true and in our hearts we know that taking our resentment and bitterness out on our friends is wrong. The reason Jesus defined true friendship within the frame of his teaching on the vine and branches in John 15 is because true friendship only exists when we want the best for those we love. In order to be a spiritual friend we need to be nourished and fed by the vine. The vine is faith in Christ which motivates us to put others first before ourselves. This is why we need to seek God before we seek friendships. If we do not enter friendship in the right spirit, we may find that our relationships become entangled with jealousy and dishonesty. If you’re treading water in a pit of self-hatred, insecurity, and bitterness, you are going to become the branch that withers and dies, the branch that bears no fruit. You will only be able to look at your friends through a lens of disappointment and jealousy. You will never experience the incredible joy of loving a friend unconditionally and having them love you in return, just as you are, flaws and all. If you approach friendship after being fed by the teachings of Christ and prayer, well…that’s a different story.

Practice Makes Perfect

How do you start building Christian friendships? For me, it started with prayer. When a friend reached out to me to join a Bible study, an integral part of our fellowship was praying for each other. On the surface, we were just praying, but in reality I was building a foundation for a paradigm shift that would change my reality. Together, we prayed that our friends would find healing, their needs would be met, and that they would find happiness and fulfillment. Our prayers grew larger and larger, encompassing more people. Actively engaging in a thought process of wishing good on others is life changing. Over time, you will find that you really do want those good things for your friends and even those who are not your friends and for some reason, the bitterness and resentment you’re holding seem to have no power against the good. Through God’s grace you have the power to shape a true friendship heart and you will commit to action your goodwill toward your friends. This is the power of God. As far as the spiritual friends …They will come and they may surprise you. They might not be who you expect just as God might be calling you to befriend someone quite unexpected. If you have a friendship heart and truly care about the well being of others, friends will be drawn to you. People who are ready for something deeper and more meaningful will find their way to you. True friendship does not start with others. It starts with you.