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God Uses Long-Lasting Friendships
“Inside Out” with Martha Manikas-Foster
We need long-lasting friendships. But political divisions, our self-reliance, and the failure to prioritize time with friends all work against sustained relationships.
“Intimacy, trust, and vulnerability–which at least to me are all really important factors in friendships—take time. Like years,” says photographer, marriage coach, and author Dorothy Littell Greco. “And that’s not to say that you can’t go deep quickly with someone that you recently met, but I think having friends for a long time—and I’m talking about like decades—is qualitatively different.”
“I think probably most of us could recount seasons in our life where friends just really come alongside of us and give us what we need in order to make it through day to day.”
Greco discusses how we are created to need friendship, and how even when our relationships encounter rocky terrain the challenge can grow us in ways few other things can. “It teaches us how to love, it teaches us how to forgive,” she says, “so there’s something about that forging deeper into friendship that I think allows us to grow up and to grow into people who are more like Jesus. And, at least for me, that’s what it’s all about.”
Greco believes that one way we can keep friendships growing, even during divisive times, is by standing alongside our friends at pivotal moments in their lives. “Showing up is really, really important, right? Showing up for those milestone events—their babies getting christened, or they’re having an engagement party, or somebody’s father died,” Greco says. “So us being present, saying, ‘We value you more than whatever else it is that we could do in that time.’”
Another important way to keep friendships growing is by facing issues head-on. “Those moments when differences surface, all of us, pretty much, have the tendency to just kind of withdraw. But rather than using that as an excuse to pull back, is saying, ‘Well, this could allow us to go deeper with each other,’” she says. “So not backing away from conflict.”
Greco also suggests taking the leap and being authentically yourself with each other.
“Choosing to say, ‘This person, I really like the conversations we’ve had, I’m going to take a risk with them and be a little bit more vulnerable.’”
Dorothy Littell Greco has written on the importance of friendship and how marriages can flourish. She is the author of Marriage in the Middle, Making Marriage Beautiful, and Start Strong.
“Inside Out” is one of our Wednesday News Features on Family Life’s Noon Report and in your Family Life News podcast feed.
