Long ago with four little children around my feet when days just happened the way they happened and crowds of people at school, work, church and neighborhood moved in and out of my routines, friendships formed organically, as though an enormous sifter was releasing the bits that didn’t fit and hanging onto those that did. I certainly didn’t purposefully vet anyone. Most times friendships in their infancy weren’t recognizable until months later when we found ourselves sharing life together as if it was the most natural, comfortable thing to do. Young life is like that. It needs to be. We carried each other, sometimes almost physically.

Time has changed the sifter.  It’s fussier now, a little rusty and timeworn. People are fewer and farther between, more folk falling through larger discerning holes into the mixture of “acquaintance” rather than “friend.” Not a bad thing. Just a thing. I love having a wide circle of acquaintances. It’s good to recognize one another in the grocery store and discuss the little bric-a-bracs of our lives as we travel in each others’ trajectories. It’s good.

Friends though, actual confidants who know your business and the reasons your brow is furrowed and why that gray streak suddenly appeared last year along your temple, are giants. They stand out in the crowd. They are good. And rare. They survive the sifter.

I’m wondering how well I fit that mold of a giant friend for others, especially women my age-ish … those who have been around a block or two and have walked a less-than-simple path. Those whose personal sifters have become more discerning and less likely to accept hordes of folks. It’s my goal and hope that for at least a few I can make it through and stay in their close circle. It’s not easy and shouldn’t be. It doesn’t happen so naturally like it did 30 or 40 years ago when we were all hanging on for dear life and raising children on three hours sleep and figuring out the world together — not that we’ve got it figured out now, but at least we’ve got a handle on a thing or two which seemed more mountain than molehill back in the day. It’s good to realize the molehill-ness of so many situations that would have put us into blind panics back when our metabolisms ran faster and cataracts were only a ridiculous word confined to ones grandparents. These days I can sit in the middle of a room of crying grandchildren and just let it go by as their parents handle it. I’ve even been known to be reading a book and drinking a diet Pepsi while everyone lurches from one minor disaster to another (I’m even doing it right now if you want to know the truth). Eventually I stand up and help, so don’t get all shocked.

Wait. Where was I?

Friendships. Giant ones.

Here’s a paragraph I ran across months ago and stashed on my phone for safekeeping. Not sure where I got it but at least I managed to save the name of the author (or at least the name of whomever plunked it out into space). I agree with most of it and will include a few of my own in the following section. There’s one partial sentence I do not relate to . . . it’s hard for me to do anything for “hours on on end.” You be the judge. Here it is:

The Type of People You Need to Hang Onto

Enthusiastic listeners. People who don’t make you guess if they’re mad. Direct communicators. The friend who helps you clean your room. People who are kind to those who can do nothing for them. Messy folks who repeatedly get it wrong but never stop trying to get it right anyway. Kindred spirits. Loud laughers. Pals who make the grocery store fun. Loved ones who get as excited about your successes as you do. The person you feel comfortable crying in front of. Sing-in-the-car friends. People who text you to look at the moon. People who text you just to say hi. The one you’ve known since childhood who you can go a long time without talking to but nothing changes. Those who understand the value of holding space. The mentor who pushes you to do better because they want better for you. Patient teachers. Healers. Scrappy souls. Hard workers. Friends you can joke about hypothetical situations with for hours on end. The genuine. Anyone who leaves you feeling good afterward, not just when you’re with them. People who see your fault lines and say they have them too. Anyone who came to mind when you read this. Hold them close. Love them hard. — Molly Burford

So that’s a neat little list. I do enjoy a loud laugher because I are one! I can sympathize. And the word “genuine” is way near the top of my list too. However, for my own way of envisioning friendship, I would need to include a few other attributes and I’ll speak to them here as a way of pledging my own intentions and deep hope acting as a friend myself.

May I present a beautiful picture of what kind of friend I strive to be during this time of life? It doesn’t portray me as beautiful, no, and I’m certainly not regal as in my favorite photo which you just saw. Ha! It’s a portrait of attributes and goals I have sifted down through and determined to be important to hold high in my relationships with friends.

My eyes and ears and voice have matured. My heart has beaten many thousands of times. I see possibilities in people whom I would’ve written off in my judge-y days and even expect great things from them, hoping I can be a small catalyst in helping that happen. I want to be an agent of redemption not condemnation, showing a better way, a higher way, the Jesus Way. With love. Not judgement. I’m not an in-your-face girl. I’m a give-a-good-word girl. If I can write that which speaks to your heart, I pledge to do it.

Embodying Christ’s love, I will be patient with you, demonstrate kindness and compassion, and speak both forthrightly and with respect to you always. I’ll tenderly hold you accountable. I hope I can learn to accept these traits in you towards me.

I pledge to actively listen to you, pray for you, and encourage you. I hope I’ll learn to lean on you for these things too.

Through thick and thin, mountains and valleys, I will be a constant for you. I’ll enter your pain with you and your mourning will become my mourning. But that doesn’t equate with being on call 24/7 and a doormat for complaints and whining without end. Does that sound rough? Maybe so. That’s what you get here though. It’s what I’ve got. Nevertheless, I’ll never stop supporting you, and pointing you toward a better path if that’s what you need. I’ll never stop praying for you . . . if I tell you I’ll pray, I’ll pray. It’s not just a phrase. And I won’t forget you. If you need an encouraging word, I’m there.

And honestly, I’ve been known to fade away for periods of time. That is not a statement of disregard for our friendship. I’m possibly needing you myself. Even at my age when I can discern the difference between a mountain and a molehill, there’s still an occasional mountain. Check on me. I’ll do the same for you.

Here’s a paragraph from an article titled, “Closer Than a Sister” published November 7, 2023 in Desiring God. It is written by Abigail Dodds. Here’s what she has to say about friendship references in scripture:

The Scriptures show us just how strong the bonds of friendship can be, as with Jonathan and David: “He loved him as his own soul” (1 Samuel 18:3). We also see the pain of a friend not living up to the name, as with Job’s friends: “My friends scorn me; my eye pours out tears to God” (Job 16:20). We know “a friend loves at all times” and that the love of a friend even includes his willingness to injure us, for “faithful are the wounds of a friend” (Proverbs 17:17; 27:6).

My giants might not even know they are in my small circle. Sometimes we don’t communicate for periods of time. Some of my friendship giants have been around since days of raising children, some earlier than that on bicycles before drivers licenses. A few cinched their spots during college. I can think of a couple whom I’ve gained within the past few years and I wish I’d had them for decades! I have deep love and affection for all my friends . . . even the “Job’s friends” types . . . we can learn from one another in different ways even if they’ve not survived the sifter. It’s these few, though, these giants, that even unbeknownst to them, hold me up and lift my hands when I cannot do it myself. Thanks be to God. And thanks be to them.

I strive to be like them. In most ways. Ha.

In this new year of 2026 (okay, that’s just weird), maybe you’d like to lean into a friendship or two that could be called “giant” in your life. It might take Herculean effort, but friend, it could make such a difference that you’d be amazed, blessed, and better for it. Trust me.

Much love,

MM

Three things will last forever — faith, hope, and love — and the greatest of these is love.

1 Corinthians 13:13 NLT