My Social Media-less Life

I know I’ve talked about my bestest friend, Esther, before, and I’m sure you all remember. We started going to our church’s Bible school at the same time and sat next to each other on the first day. She forgot her Bible and was called on to read a passage. I passed her my Bible and the rest is history.

While we were in Bible school, we had a well-meaning teacher that gave off the impression (if they didn’t outright say it) that having anybody as a “best friend” was wrong because one should never be so exclusive that you share more of yourself with one person than with everyone else. Unless it’s a spouse, of course.

And I really struggled with that for some time because although I never had anyone that I would have called my best friend growing up, I always craved that closeness with one person.

Just having someone who knows more about my thoughts, feelings and desires than anybody else. Someone who can see a situation from my angle, but help me to see it from a different angle as well. Someone who can just sit in silence with me for minutes on end, without the need to talk between us.

Between our graduation in 2017 and late 2020, Esther and I grew in our friendship to the point where one day she semi-jokingly proclaimed in a group webchat after I logged in, “Oh hey! I found my best friend!”

Although we both laughed about it, we remembered what that teacher had said and both had to do our own separate soul-searching to determine the veracity of that teacher’s words to what we were feeling God might be calling us to in our own lives as friends.

In short, we came to the conclusion that we needed what the other had too much to be anything other than best friends.

Now that we have that backstory out of the way…

When we graduated from Bible college in August 2017, I knew deep down that Esther’s days in the city were numbered. She’s a country girl through and through, and more than that, she’s a mountain girl.

Every time she would visit her family, especially over the last couple years, it felt as though less of Esther would return to Kansas City. When I picked her up earlier this year, I knew with absolute certainty if she didn’t start putting things in motion to move back to her home state, she would end up going to visit and never come back.

By the end of that following weekend she sat our mutual best friend, Rachel, and I down and told us she was doing exactly what I knew she needed to do.

At the time I was happy for her, and of course I still am.

But now Esther has a moving date. And it looms closer with each passing day. And it’s much sooner than the three of us thought it would be…

As the moving date draws near, it’s hitting me that not many days are left between now and then. Less than two months, to be exact.

And honestly… I’m not okay.

That’s not to say I’m a wreck on the floor or anything like that. But I’ve never had a “friend who is closer than a brother”, as the Bible put it, and therefore I’m struggling a bit with what my life will look like once Esther has moved away.

Bible Story Time!

The Lord reminded me the other day that He gave me a word for us, and that was before Esther went on her trip home this summer.
“Your relationship is to be like David and Jonathan’s in the Bible.”

David and Jonathan were the BEST of friends, even when the whole world was against them. Through everything, they were there for each other. And there was a time where David and Jonathan had to go separate ways, but they were always close. When Jonathan died, David had the entire nation of Israel mourn for him. And after Jonathan’s death, David searched the whole land for any family members that he could care for in honor of Jonathan.

When David had to flee Jonathan’s family home in 1 Samuel 20, there’s a part that was brought to my mind while I was writing this:

Then David bowed three times to Jonathan with his face to the ground. Both of them were in tears as they embraced each other and said good-bye, especially David. At last Jonathan said to David, “Go in peace, for we have sworn loyalty to each other in the Lord’s name. The Lord is the witness of a bond between us and our children forever.” Then David left, and Jonathan returned to the town.

— 1 Samuel 20:41b – 42 (emphasis added)

At the time I told Esther about this new level of relationship, she jokingly asked “Which one of us is David?” But if he was the one doing more crying… anyone who knows Esther knows that’s her as well. 😛

The point of this whole post is just to flesh out some emotions and chronicle for those following along in my life that things are happening, and these next few months will be more ups and downs.

As is usually the case with this whole blog site, I will be working through some new grief and will be open to whatever the Holy Spirit wants to do with this… mess of emotions.

The title of this post is from a Relient K song called “You’ll Always Be My Best Friend” but I didn’t want the blog title to be that long, so I made it an ellipsis. 🙂