Friendship is a funny thing. It seems like it should be all manicures, mojitos, laughter-till-you-pee-your-pants and middle-of-the-night-phone-calls – and if you’re lucky, it is all those things and more. Unfortunately, it’s often the “more” piece of the equation that proves a little more complicated. 

The truth can be a nasty little bugger and in friendships of a certain depth, the truth cannot be ignored. However, the truth is not always easy to swallow, not even over perfectly muddled mojitos.

I recently found myself in Southern California for a business trip and had dinner with an old college roommate whom I hadn’t seen in more than five years. Over baked brie and red wine, I looked across the table at a beautiful, independent, grounded woman who, despite our distance and gaps in communication, I knew with full confidence I could still count a true friend.

For a moment, we were 18, and bonding in the communal bathroom over how we could swear our faces looked really weird in the mirror. So much of us was exactly the same and yet so much of us was wholly different – stronger, wiser, more confidant, more content with life and our place in it -- better.

It was then – in that moment in a darkened wine bar – that I knew in such a tangible way that God’s grace is true but His timing is also perfect – even if it means we have to wait for it.

I had an eating disorder in college. I hate how cliché that sounds, but it is my story, and it was very real. In addition to hurting myself, and missing out on a lot of what my college experience could have been, I hurt the people that we’re closest to me. At the time, I don’t think I really understood how much, nor do I think they realized what all I was dealing with. I was hurting in so many ways and made a lot of mistakes. And of all the regrets that plague that period of my life, and trust me there are many, it was the friendship lost between my roommate and I, that I still mourn all these years later.

So this reunion – one night, one drink (ok, two drinks) – felt like redemption. We didn’t go into the nitty gritty details of the past, we didn’t call out specific wounds or individual events – but I can’t explain it, there was understanding. Ours was a friendship that was true – the real kind where truth exists and complication is impossible to ignore. If we had just been good times and laughs, we probably could have ignored whatever was going on all those years ago.

They say the truth will set you free, and although my journey was a long one, the truth did in fact set me free. And it all started with hard conversations between my roommate on the floor of our dorm room. Now granted I wasn’t totally honest with her or myself in those first conversations, and those are the same conversations and decisions that put a huge wedge in our friendship – but it was that seedling of truth that saved my life.

So there we were talking about our husbands and our jobs and thinking about having kids. I saw in her every reason why we were ever close and then some. I saw that God had worked in both of our lives. I saw that we were both happy and healthy and living in truth. And I felt – healing.

I hadn’t been enough and then I had been too much. I couldn’t fix our friendship. I couldn’t take away the mistakes I’d made, but it turns out, I didn’t have too. When we were both ready, God’s grace was there to cover us both – past, present and future.

So tonight, I’m thankful for old friendships and new friendships. For the friends whom God uses to expose truth and for the friends whom God puts in your life just to enjoy mojitos.