Mary's Prayer about Friendship by Kelley Barton

I found myself a bit discouraged by Sunday’s message. Two of my longtime friends have moved far out of the area and a more recent wonderful friend just recently moved out of state. One of my close friends, who still lives here, I deeply hurt and we are still healing. Things are not the same.

I don’t have what was shared on Sunday. Growing up with a malfunctional family, I have always longed for the long, deep friendship that was described.

Then along came Mary. She closed the service with a prayer that expressed a lot of what I was feeling. Here is her prayer. Listen to it on YouTube or the Podcast. Copy it for your phone notes or print it and put it somewhere you can look at it when you have these feelings. I hope it will bring you comfort and hope that the relationship you long for can still happen. That’s what I’m hoping for.

Thank you, Lord for the longtime friends we have. For those beautiful, messy, conflict-ridden friendships that have little secret pockets of bitterness. They have stood the test of time. Part of that is you, Lord, being in them. They give us perspective.

May we leave today with a renewed desire to treat those sacred relationships with a little more care. Let us remember we are built for relationship, not social media. Help us ask for what we need in those relationships and be honest about what we don’t want. Let us be brave enough to have conflict, Lord. Give us courage.

Thank you for the good mirrors we have, even when sometimes it hurts to look at them directly.

Thank you for the earnest council that sometimes stings.

Lord, heal our frenemies. Remove the jealousy, the competition and the broken mirror that we have when we look at them.

Help us be secure in our own belovedness so we can be safe friends.

Help us be silent for our beloved friend, to be gentle and kind.

Help us draw forth the best in each other.

Let us linger in the accepting gaze.

Lord, for those of us that don’t have the benefit of long, deep friendships – I just want to name the ache that might be inside.

We all want cheerleaders. We want people who seek to speak the good in us out loud.

Give us discernment for who that might be, how we might be vulnerable.

And if we have wounds from people who have called us friend, or we have called them friend, Lord, help us heal. Help us find the right person.

Help us be the friend that we desperately want.