Price

“How about this, you play ping pong with me and I read your stuff?” My friend asked strategically, after she got addicted in playing table tennis with me for the first time ever since we know each other two years ago, and after I told her how much I would feel loved when people listen to me with their heart and read my stuff.

“Really?! Deal!” I opened my eyes widely and responded without even a single bit of hesitation. No reason to say no to this good deal, for I like both table tennis and have people read my stuff. Today after sending a picture of night market to this friend, I got the following reminder, “You still need to play ping pong with me, no matter how much stomach flab you must drag along with you”. I know she remembers the deal. We shouldn’t make friends out of the purpose of reciprocal benefits, but relationship per se is interactional.

Last night after having quiet time in a nice 24/7 prayer room, I went to the church’s special programme on Jeremiah and it’s message to the generation. Most of the attendees were real adults, and the middle-aged pastor concluded, “Brothers and sisters, we already live to this age in life, we know that there’s no free lunch, and everything comes with a price. Life is like continuously paying prices, and there are also times of sufferings. We better hope that the things we are paying for are something for God, that’s the only way we don’t toil our life in vanity.” Despite this heavy statement, the pastor did talk about the hope in God, etc.

Her conclusion made me rethink a lot, including relationship.

Recently a close friend and I were talking through Skype, my heart was so deeply moved by her genuine sharing on how grateful she is for and how important this friendship is for her. I deserve neither this friendship nor her thankfulness. But I also want to let my friend know, it is not just me pouring out, but she also pays the price.

While it is easy to always keep a smile in shallow relationships, which doesn’t require much commitment or reveal much hard side; I do believe most deep relationships do come with price tags, be it forbearance, commitment of love and time, and so on. No one is perfect. I have a lot of shortcomings. I always share A LOT both in verbal and written forms, and I wilfully send my sharing to my friend without truly realize I am not entitled to people’s time in reading my stuff; there are times I am JUST not thoughtful; I get really impatient when I am extremely tired, in which my friend already experienced a few times; I am horrible in keeping time; sometimes I am unaware of people’s feelings when I get to the problem-solving-oriented mode; I am super slow in responding to my friend’s sharing over conversation, sometimes have to be in written form days after; I am equally slow in understanding people deeply, to name but a few. And my family and close friends can help supplementing this list with issues I don’t even notice.

Part of the price this friend pays to cultivate and maintain this deep relationship is to bear with me on all these. One of the most impressive moments to me was, when my friend told me she thought I understand her than most people do, knowing I sometimes felt bad for not being able to understand her as deep as she does to me.

Another price my friend also pays is to trust in me and let me share burdens and even vulnerabilities. I came from a place where I enjoyed being alone all the time, and the most ideal human relationship once to me was to not have deep relationship in order to not bother each other. While God has been changing me through different relationships over time, I think He particularly let me experience deep joy and honour of being trusted in bearing burdens and even seeing certain vulnerabilities. This is something wonderful beyond words. For who am I that I could have someone’s deep trust to this extent. Another new thing I have experienced in this friendship is to invest emotionally, so as to understand people’s feelings more. Every time when I indirectly indicate something bad to myself, like saying “thanks for being patient in listening to me;” my friend would make an angry face and I would be scared and want to flee but just stay there and rephrase my sentences. Practically speaking, it doesn’t do her any harm even if I condemn myself. But this genuine care teaches me so much. And I believe it is made possible with investment of emotions. I am thankful God puts me on the learning track of this investment through this friendship, that I could feel deeper about my friend’s joy and sadness regarding the burden we are lifting together.  

A few weeks ago our pastor was preaching about spiritual community. He said people may want a spiritual family with intimate relationships, but many are not willing to pay the price for that. But my friend pays the price, with forbearance, deep trust, acceptance, and maybe things I am not even aware for now. And I know the trust part is not something easy for most people including my friend.

I also see how faithful God has been in growing this spiritual friendship. A while ago a friend was praying for me and she said something about “effortless”. In that particularly area she prayed for, I did pour out time, reflection and courage to make it happened, and part of it is based on certain experience of difficult times. Then how is it “effortless”? But more and more do I come to realise that “effortless”, in most cases, doesn’t mean that it cause us no time, effort or even labouring. But instead, God bridges the gap between our faithfulness and fruit. We can toil till our last bit of strength but not getting anything as reward, and every fruit is prospered by Him. This is how I try to reconcile between God’s sovereignty and our faithfulness in making things happened.

God has been faithful in deepens this relationship. He entrusts my friend with significant things to my life, i.e. inviting me to a conference where my asthma got healed, inviting me to a campus ministry that brings enormous and even lifelong impacts to my spiritual life, being a shelter with acceptance to allow me to learn expressing my feelings, to name but a few. We know every goodness to us is out of His grace, but I also believe God entrusts important role in my life to my friend because He finds her trustworthy. In times my friends have been so willing to listen to me, to be open with me, to not holding onto it but forgive my impatient moments, etc.  And for my part, even though I still have so much to learn to be a thoughtful spiritual companion, God and my friend entrust me the honour to bear burden so as to learn to commit.

We can pour out to each other but it doesn’t necessarily lead to the unexplainable depth we have in this special friendship. The willingness to share burdens doesn’t always lead to deep trust that may make the person feels even a bit uncomfortable about revealing so much of vulnerability. But He has been faithful in orchestrating everything to nurture this relationship and let us taste fruit, and give us grace and honours to have impacts in each other’s life along with the progress we are willing to learn to commit. And last but not least, it is made possible for my friend also pays the price. Although I think she probably would disagree with me by telling me how much a joy it is to walk with me, (bearing the risk of getting her mad) I still want to thank her for everything she pays to make this precious friendship possible and sustainable.