Friendship

A few years ago, I read Gary Chapman’s book, The 5 Love Languages, and have viewed the ways that I give and receive love in all of my relationships very differently ever since. In his book, Chapman lays out five ways that most people both feel loved by others and show their love to others: gifts, physical touch, words of affirmation, quality time, and acts of service. When I took the quiz initially to find out what my love languages were, I found that my top love language for both giving and receiving love was quality time. When I wanted to show someone that I loved them and cared about them, I didn’t buy them something (gifts), or hug them (touch), or write

The importance of friendship is immeasurable. As human beings, we need relationship, connections, and support. Although some days we need a little alone time, we really were created for community. Not solitude. A few months ago, I called my best friend to get caught up on all the life happening in her world. She only had a few moments, because well…life. We get busy with our families; hers happens to be pretty big. We get busy with our jobs, and we don’t always have another five minutes to squeeze out of the day. Created for Connection Out of desperation to see and catch up with my friend, my closest confidant, I suggested we meet at 5:45 in the morning to walk the

Have you ever felt like you were treated unfairly? Perhaps you’ve worked hard on a project, but someone else on your team got the credit. Or, maybe you know you have the gifts and talents to excel in a certain role, but you’ve been overlooked and undervalued. Is there someone you’re close to who continually does something (or doesn’t do something) that makes you so irritated you tell them off in your head every time you think about the situation? Been there. Haven’t we all? Regardless of the circumstances, we all find ourselves interacting with other human beings—and human beings are flawed (including you). So, we’ll rub each other the wrong way, say or do hurtful things, and frustrate the heck out

In this life, the terrain is continually changing; we will climb mountains, skip through lush fields of wildflowers, traverse into deep valleys, and try to navigate our way through dry desert sand. Each with its own beauty and hardship. As difficult as these paths can be at times, we need to make sure we aren’t trying to go it alone. We should take our own advice. You know, what you tell your kids when they head out the door on an adventure, “Don’t go anywhere alone. Remember to use the buddy system.” Now don’t get me wrong, sometimes we need a little time out, some solitude, to do a little self-reflection and see where we should be showing ourselves some grace. Most of