5. Sisters Pursue Christ Together

In the final episode of Friends and Sisters, hosts Tina Boesch and Paige Keeton are joined by special guests Amanda Mejias and Corinne Allen for a thoughtful conversation about the purpose and beauty of Christian friendship. Together, they explore unity, generational differences, and how truth and love help navigate conflict with an eternal perspective in view. This episode encourages women to pursue deeper connections through prayer and to cultivate friendships that reflect Christ within the family of faith. 

• Key Bible Passage: Ephesians 4:1-16 

LINKS 

Friends and Sisters Bible study 

This Is Friendship: A 4-session Bible study for teen girls 

Anxious Generation 

The Marked Podcast 

CSB Women’s Study Bible 

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Hosted by Tina Boesch and Paige Clayton Keeton with guests Amanda Mejias and Corinne Allen. 

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Friends and Sisters is a podcast from Lifeway Women. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:12

Hey y'all, welcome. Welcome to the Friends and Sisters Podcast.

SPEAKER_04 0:16

I'm Tina Bosch, and I'm Paige Keaton, and in this podcast, we'll reflect on how to cultivate deep Christ-centered relationships with one another.

SPEAKER_02 0:23

Whether you are new to your relationship with Jesus or if you've walked with him for years, this podcast will remind you that you have a place in God's family, and we really hope it's also going to inspire you to be a better friend and sister. That's right. Yeah. Paige. I am. I'm so ready. So, Paige, I think it'd be helpful to just acknowledge that even for those of us who have known Christ a long time and have had some really good f Christian friendships, that every one of us can come into a season where we feel really alone again. Yeah. Um, where we are experiencing loneliness again. Um that will can be a recurring thing that we struggle with in our lives. So I'm curious for you, um, was there a time where you remember feeling really alone, feeling really lonely, and and really the Lord using Christian community to pull you out of that feeling of isolation?

SPEAKER_04 1:19

It's so interesting. When I came here, it took me six months to find a house. And God knew, and I and I looked back on that because I was like, I need a place to land, I need a place to sit, I need a place to just that's my own. I need my stuff, my stuff was in storage. And God gave me Christian community first because he knew that's how I would survive. Because when I came here, I did not, I was loved where I live, but God was like, You're going to Nashville, you're gonna work at Life Way. Like He they called me to come for a job here, and I've loved it. It's been an amazing journey. But in the very beginning, I did not know anyone. Yeah, uh, I had no friends. I was I'm a I'm an extrovert. I love people, I fuel on people. I was like, I didn't even see Mabel. And he actually set me up to live with a friend for the first like four months, like just looking for a house, could not find a house. And she plugged me into her community. She had a she had a at the time had a home group in her in her house every week. And so I just did that with her. And so many of those relationships. I actually had dinner with one of those girls last night. Like that is after 20 years, still my community that God plugged me in there when I was so lonely and heartbroken from leaving where I was, leaving the community where I was to come and and in obedience, but it was like uh and still today, many of those relationships, and the friend that actually put me into her home is one of my best friends. Oh wow. And so I'm so grateful that God did that for me because He knew in advance that I needed community. Yeah. We all do. We do. Yeah. So that's me. So tell me about you. Now you've been in so many different cultures and so many different experiences. I have. And it's rich times together with believers can be so incredibly just life-giving. And so tell me about a time when you experienced what almost felt like an eternal, this is what eternity is gonna be like with fellow believers. So tell me, have you had that kind of experience?

SPEAKER_02 3:00

Yeah, you know, um I do think that's one of the things that's so interesting about Christian friendship is this like long time horizon realizing that actually these relationships are gonna last into eternity. Yeah. Um I am with you in feeling like these periods of transition are periods of real grief. Yeah. So our family was, I was in the middle of one of those uh when we moved from Turkey um to Louisiana. That was about seven years ago. And we had lived in Turkey for about, I mean, 14 years. I'd had two of my three kids there, and we had done life there for so long. And we were in a season of living out of suitcases. We really didn't know kind of what our future was gonna hold. And in that like season of transition, in the summer, we invited um three couples who had been friends with us overseas to come to my grandparents' mountain house. Now, this weekend of being together was a reunion of three different friends from three different seasons of life in this place where we were watching the sunrise and where we were making meals together, and we were eating outside on this giant picnic table that our whole family used to eat around. And it was just this crazy moment of family, my all of my history and memories of family coming together with these friends who I had experienced, grieved with, gone through hard things with, um, and seen in so many different seasons of my life. I think that's what heaven's gonna be like. These people from different phases, these women that we've known from different, totally different phases of our lives.

SPEAKER_04 4:47

A big reunion.

SPEAKER_02 4:47

A big reunion. That's what it felt like. And it was wonderful. I love it. That sounds amazing.

SPEAKER_04 4:53

And it also shows you how God does orchestrate friendship. Like we do get to pray and ask because He does, and for seasons, there knows what we need in each season.

SPEAKER_02 5:02

It is a gift. Friendship is absolutely a gift of the Lord.

SPEAKER_04 5:07

Yeah. And we're gonna talk a little bit about eternal relationships in this discussion. We're about to do that.

SPEAKER_02 5:12

Yeah, we actually get to talk to two women who are friends themselves. Yep. Amanda Mahias and Corinne Allen. Together, they wrote a study called This Is Friendship. Both of them are in girls' ministry, both of these women are really, really dialed in to the kinds of things that young women especially are struggling with now. And they realize that friendship is an absolutely essential need for our girls and also for us as women. So we're gonna get to talk with them. I'm really excited about that. So encouraging. And the passage that we're gonna be looking at together with Amanda and Corinne is in Ephesians. Um, and it is an incredible passage that gives us a little bit of a view of the ultimate goal of our friendship when we are believers. So I'm gonna be reading from Ephesians 4, and this is what we're gonna be talking with Amanda and Corinne about. Ephesians 4, picking up in verse 1. Therefore, I, the prisoner in the Lord, urge you to walk worthy of the calling you have received with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one spirit, just as you were called to one hope at your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all. Now grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift. For it says, when he ascended on high, he took the captives captive, he gave gifts to people. But what does he ascended mean except that he also descended to the lower parts of the earth? The one who descended is also the one who ascended far above all the heavens to fill all things, and he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry to build up the body of Christ, until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of God's Son, growing into maturity with a stature measured by Christ's fullness, then we will no longer be like children, tossed by the waves and blown around by every wind of teaching, by human cunning with cleverness in the techniques of deceit, but speaking the truth in love. Let us grow in every way into him who is the head, Christ. From him, the whole body, fitted and knit together by every supporting ligament, promotes the growth of the body for building itself up in love by the proper working of each individual part. Corinne and Amanda, I am so ready to talk about friendship with you guys. You guys are like the friendship experts. Oh, I don't feel that we are all, but thank you. I'm excited. So we just read Ephesians 4 and like let's start there because it's such a rich passage, and I feel like it does give us a vision for the ultimate purpose, especially of Christian community and Christian friendship. So, you guys, how would y'all define the ultimate goal, the ultimate aim of our friendships with other believing women?

SPEAKER_05 8:32

That's so good. Um, okay, so if you look at the end closer to verse 16, um, I mean, so it's talked about unity, it's talked about how you know we should love each other and how we are all, you know, have different gifts. And so it comes together right at the end in verse um 15 and 16. So rather speaking the truth in love, which we'll talk about in a little bit, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head into Christ, from whom the whole body joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. And I think there's two parts here. One in verse 15, it talks about we are to grow up in every way into him. It's like a self-maturity. Yeah. Like if we are one to be sanctified by God's word, by the people of God, by the Spirit of God, I mean, relationship. We need the kingdom, we need the body. And not only is it a self-sanctification, it makes the body of Christ better. Um, when we are when we are living out Ephesians 4, 1 through 16, the ultimate goal is the fact that the church flourishes.

SPEAKER_01 9:42

Yeah. Yeah, I think it's such a beautiful picture of just our goal is Christ-likeness and we want to become more like Christ. As our goal of spiritually maturing, we want to grow in wisdom and maturity. But at the same time, like Amanda's saying, we want to model to a world that is in desperate need of hope. The unity, the peace that is offered in Christ Jesus, and that is only possible if we are looking more and more like Jesus as a contrast to the rest of the world and an invitation that there is something better that Jesus has, but without us growing to be more like him and to bring his character into the world, then we're really missing out on what God has called us to for our days on earth is to invite other people into that same Christ-likeness and unity that can only come through Jesus.

SPEAKER_05 10:36

Yeah, that I think that's what sets apart friendships as believers compared to any other friendship in, you know, outside of the church, outside of Christ. Is that friendship is self-seeking in the world? Friendship is all about what I what how it benefits me and to make me the best version of myself. And that's why it often fails. And that's why often there's drama and there's people who stab you in the back because it often is self-motivated. But when our motivation is like fixed on, hey, I want to be sanctified, to be more like Christ, to be a light into the world, um, to live out the calling of being a functioning member of the body of Christ.

SPEAKER_03 11:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 11:15

I mean, you can't compare that to the friendships of this world. And I I think we have it the best. I think it as a believer, man, like we that's like the best part of being saved is that God didn't just say, Hey, you now get to walk this life um, you know, and try to follow me. It's like, no, I now get to walk and grow up and maturity in Him with other people. Um, and it's for my good and for the good of others.

SPEAKER_02 11:39

Tell me why it matters that as Christians, we know our friendships are eternal.

SPEAKER_05 11:44

Oh.

SPEAKER_02 11:45

How does that affect your friendships now? Like the decisions you guys might make. I mean, you guys are friends. If y'all had a conflict, how does it matter that you know that you actually have an eternal future for your friendship?

SPEAKER_01 11:56

I mean, it for sure makes us zoom out and like remember the bigger picture. Like this conflict might be stressful, or I might have preferences or hurts or different things. But then the eternal perspective that as sisters in Christ, we are helping each other on the journey home as Jesus being our shepherd. Like he's the one guiding us home, but we are arm in arm, like journeying home. And so this place isn't even our forever home. And so remembering that I don't want to be distracted though and consumed by the minor that I know maybe feels major in conflict at times, and they are important, but from the eternal perspective, that but in the end, this is not just about handling one conflict one time or making it through this awkward situation. It's I am gonna worship at the feet of Jesus for all of eternity next to Amanda and my other sisters in Christ, and that matters a lot more, and that changes how I pray and discern and speak up, but also forgive and remember the bigger picture and but also with that, because we know that our best days are still ahead in all of eternity, that allows me to enjoy and to celebrate the good also and to be able to hold both.

SPEAKER_02 13:12

I'm curious because I'm there's something I'm noticing in the women that I are friends of mine in our kind of community in our church, is that when we're meeting, there's sometimes some topics that are off the table that's like we are aren't going to talk about because I we know there are different views in the room, and like let's not go there. So I think it's interesting that in Ephesians, like there's such an emphasis on making ever every effort to keep the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace, one body, one spirit, one Lord, one faith, one baptism. And we're like, because it's all one and we want to keep the peace, we don't want to talk about the things we disagree about. So help me understand you guys. Let's think through like, how can we do better on that as Christian women? How can we say yes, we're unified around these core things, but we may actually disagree when we're talking about this other set of things, and that's okay. That doesn't mean there's disunity in the body. That's okay. So let's talk about that.

SPEAKER_05 14:12

Um, honestly, when we were talking first Corinthians 13, the love chapter came to mind. Um, we often like to recite it at weddings, but man, like if we could get this right in friendship and how we love our friends and the body of Christ. Um, so first of all, I think when we're speaking truth and love, our I think whatever truth we speak want to speak before we comes out of our mouth, I think that 1 Corinthians 13 is a great filter we can run it through. And to say, like, okay, um, love is patient and kind is what I'm about to say. Is it patient and kind? Um, it says it does not envy or boast. So, like, whatever truth I am, is it is it because I'm right in a situation and I want to boast about it? Um, is it it's not arrogant? So a lot of times those dividing topics that cause quote unquote disunity, it's all honestly out of pride or arrogance. And so I think it's less about what topics, and I think it's more just people don't know how to talk about the hard things. So it's off the table, not because they don't want to. Everyone wants to talk about these like hard things. Like, no one wants to wrestle with even political or hard theological, you know, topics on our own. We want to have it, but we're scared. And I think it's just because we don't know how to like run it through the filter of like, how do I do this in a loving way that won't offend, that won't hurt? And honestly, truth does offend sometimes. Um but when we do it in love, like there is so much grace that can come from it.

SPEAKER_01 15:39

Well, and right before what you were saying in Ephesians in that beginning, like when Paul is talking about let us walk in the worthy of the calling you've received with all humility, gentleness, patience, bearing with one another in love. So that's gonna require a lot of long suffering to like stick with it. I think also we live in a world and our context is more teenagers, but I see it in women older than that too, it'd be easy to look at another generation. But we literally on social media have an opportunity to block and mute people that we don't want to deal with. And I think that when we have that as an option, internet-wise, we take that into our relationships. That if I don't like what this is gonna be about or I'm uncomfortable, I can just be done. But I think so much of the challenges, so many of these conversations and disagreement doesn't need to be happening online or in like giant circles from big platforms. This is like around a dinner table. And I think part of what I'm learning is we need the discernment from the Lord to know, okay, Lord, what have you said from your word is black and white that we need to hold firmly to and we do not need to waver from. Right. Because I think sometimes we have a tendency to try to make gray things that are black and white, and vice versa, we try to say that this is black and white when really God's word has given us some room to disagree. And so being able to approach conversations with humility, like you're saying, of I don't even know. And I think it's important though that we go to the Lord with our friends, going, Lord, we don't know. This is my background, this is my experience, but these are the questions I'm wrestling with, the kids I'm raising, like I don't this is what I'm thinking about, like in the world that we're raising them into. I'm really struggling with this. I'm reading these news headlines, I'm seeing these different things, and I just don't know. And if our goal is to move us more towards the heart of Jesus and his mind and to think the way he thinks and to seek his face, versus I've got to have an answer. And I think in those conversations when we can say, Lord, like my goal is not just to get the content right, but also the approach right and to have the conversations that I can be right. I might actually be right, but if my approach or delivery of the conversation is wrong, then I'm still it's still wrong and it's still not honoring the Lord.

SPEAKER_05 18:06

The other thing, Tina, to your like credit of the when you're in a group, and I think this kind of echoes what Kryn said of like, is this the right time to share? And sometimes maybe it is. And oftentimes I think people are waiting for the one person to go first and sharing it. And so my encouragement to you is if you are in a small group, maybe it's just three women that you are friends with, or maybe it is your small group, and you're like, I want to go deeper. I want us to stop just talking about the surface levels, I want to have real life conversations here, I want to talk about the struggles in my marriage or parenting or um fill in the blank. Um it may require you to go first. Yeah. So, and it may require setting some ground rules of like, hey, we're I want to talk about something, but before I do that, I want you to hear my heart. Um, and this is what I want, and I want you to feel comfortable to share, and I want you to feel comfortable to disagree. Um, and sometimes that creates a safe space that someone just needs to say it out loud. I want to talk about hard things, and here as a group, we're gonna all agree this is how we're gonna address hard things.

SPEAKER_01 19:03

Yeah, yeah. And Paige, you could probably speak to this, but I think also from a counseling perspective, as we grow in our capacity to live in tension, I think sometimes our flesh and human nature wants to put a bow on everything and be resolved. But for the rest of our life on earth, we're learning to hold a lot of both. We're learning to live in tension, and I think the older I'm getting, the more I'm learning that I can last longer in tension. And I think that's really important to our friendships too. Right.

SPEAKER_04 19:32

That takes maturity, it's just maturity and learning things the hard way. Yeah. And we've talked about that in previous episodes in friendships, things we did wrong, or you know, that we're learning, and you don't make those mistakes again if you're maturing and you're growing in self-awareness of how you handle things and how what works and what doesn't work, you know, and that we don't have to put a bow on it. Like some things are not gonna have a bow. A lot of things are not gonna have most things are not gonna have a bow. So good.

SPEAKER_02 19:54

Now we we are mature women. Okay, you guys are younger.

SPEAKER_05 19:59

We're we're the immature ones in the room.

SPEAKER_02 20:01

Now listen, work with girls. You just mentioned that, Corinne. And so, and you just wrote a book called This Is Friendship. And I'm gonna guess that that was inspired by some real issues you guys saw girls struggling with. So let's talk a little bit about some of the things you guys are seeing in girls' ministry, friendship issues that are arising among our girls, Gen Z, and how they're different from maybe the issues that women in y'all's generation may be dealing with as it relates to friendship.

SPEAKER_05 20:30

Corinne may disagree with me, but uh, we when we were writing this, we were like, I so much of it was like, I wish I knew this at 16 so I didn't have to learn this lesson now in my 30s. Um I think we we joke all the time, like the women we serve are just like grown-up teen girls trapped in a woman's body. Uh and like whatever you didn't learn or unlearn when you were in a teenager, you're just dealing with the same issues 10 to 20 years later. Um and so I would say that a lot of the issues we see with teen girls, it's the same. It just flushes out differently. And so a season of loneliness for a teen girl could be the girl sitting at a lunch table by herself, but goes home to a loving family who loves her and welcomes her in. Um, but a woman in her 30s, loneliness could be I'm I'm in a job with a lot of people, but I go home to an empty house. And so I think loneliness kind of flushes itself out in different seasons. What about you? What are some other things that you would say?

SPEAKER_01 21:27

Yeah, I think there's definitely things unique to generations right now. So Gen Z, Gen Alpha, that we have covered um books like The Anxious Generation that do tell us there are just some different things that since social media and phones have come in that I don't think we help teen girls when we're like, I totally get what you're going through, or we don't.

SPEAKER_02 21:46

Yeah. And at the same time They don't want us to say, I totally get what you're doing through.

SPEAKER_01 21:51

I'm like, I don't like that either. I'm like, you don't fully understand. But so there are some really unique things, but I also don't want them to buy the lie that because Of their like nuances of their season, that some of this is age-old like struggles. And so I think we're not trying to ignore the uniqueness and the nuances, but to say, hey, but at the end of the day, no matter the weird things that are different about our generations, the sin and brokenness that come into play make this hard. And I think one of the things we've talked about is girls are wrestling with, I'm supposed to reach my friends that don't know Jesus. Sometimes that's an overwhelming amount of my friends, but then I'm supposed to have Christian friends, but girls don't really want to talk that deep. They don't know always how to have deep conversations. And so trying to encourage girls that the problem is not having unbeliever friends, we should. The problem is when unbelieving friends are our only friends or they're not our friends at all. But I think even taking that to women, maybe they are believers, but if their life goal is not Jesus over everything, they are chasing hard after the kingdom. In the same way that we tell our teenagers, be careful who you're hanging out with, because that's who you're becoming. Uh the same goes for us. Like, are the women that we're surrounding ourselves with thinking about in every way? How does this bring me closer to Jesus? How is this pursuing the kingdom? And I think honestly, one of the biggest lessons that in writing this Bible study that I wish I would have had, and is more an outpouring of what God's teaching me is our last one about this call to weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice. And the cognitive dissonance of my brain is like, okay, all my friends were in a season of weeping. So we just got to buckle down and grieve. And now, thank goodness we've made it and we're all in a season of rejoicing. And I think about my life group right now, it could not be more all over the board of there is so much right now to celebrate, and there's a lot that God has not answered on. And I think sometimes there's a fear that if we introduce our celebration into someone else's sorrow, it will either cancel out their sorrow or it will cause distance. And in the same way, if everyone is celebrating, we're afraid to share our sorrow because we're afraid it'll dampen the mood. And I think really wanting girls to learn now that there's room for both, that Jesus models that.

SPEAKER_05 24:33

Um, if one person prays for their braces, all of a sudden eight prayer requests for braces come up at the same time.

SPEAKER_01 24:38

But then someone's like, Well, my parents are getting divorced, so I guess I'm not gonna share that this time. Yeah, exactly. You know, like wanting to create that space to go, hey, no matter what happens, I want to grieve and I want to celebrate God's goodness, and both can happen. And teaching our girls from that from a young age is, I think, really important.

SPEAKER_02 24:56

What would y'all say to the Christian woman who's like, I really am longing for this kind of deep friendship that is pursuit of Christ, that is growing up to much into maturity in Christ, but I don't know where to start. I don't know where to start. I know my Christian friendships aren't like that, they're surface level. How would you encourage her?

SPEAKER_01 25:14

We've said it a lot, but I would encourage you to go first. I would also encourage you to be patient. Some of this, I think sometimes we want in one coffee what actually comes after a year of doing life together with people. And I'm that way. I'm like, I just really want us to click and it just be amazing. And that can be a start, but I think sometimes it's the going first to say, I'm gonna be the friend that I want to have. I'm gonna start inviting others on the journey. I'm gonna be really honest to say, I feel super alone, I feel super unfulfilled in my friendships right now, and I'm looking for more. And I don't even know what that would look like, but would you like to come on the journey with me? I have not actually asked that and had anyone tell me no. Now, maybe like seasonally or like things, it just didn't work out. But then I also think stay the course because you've got to clock hours and hours and hours with those people. And so if one coffee doesn't magically make you best friends for life, it may be the step in that right direction, but all the while taking the pressure off of people and remembering though that Jesus is our greatest friend and that no matter what we face, he is with us, and when we are fully satisfied in him, we are so much more freed up to pursue relationship the way that he designed.

SPEAKER_05 26:28

I mean, I give the Jesus answer of prayer um plays a significant role in the people that God brings in your life. And um we we we say, you know, I say it's the Jesus answer because I think sometimes people hear that and they're like, oh great, thanks for the next step, Amanda. Um but when I moved um to Florida a couple years ago, um, at this point, I remember stumbling upon a friend and we we're still very close now. And I remember like calling my mom and just like having a I met a girl at swim lessons, you know, and my mom's I've been praying for that. And I just remember being like, oh, gross. And uh, but honestly, like I do believe the Lord heard the prayers of my mom and you know, she was praying for me at 32 years old of to find friends. And I do believe that God cares about the deepest desires of our hearts. And if we are longing for that companion, that mentor, often people are asking for a mentor or just somebody to like actually do life with. Um, God wants that for us. I mean, that's literally how he's designed us, right? Um, and obviously there's brokenness, and we all this whole world is so busy, quote unquote. Um, but he's a God who answers and he's a God who hears. And if anything, during that time of seeking the Lord and asking him to open your eyes to the people around you, he he automatically draws you closer to himself. Um and so I would never discount just the idea and the concept of just giving to the Lord over and over and over again, and then asking other people around you. Maybe it's not your best friend, maybe it's your mom, uh, maybe it's whoever, but asking them, hey, I am praying for a friend. Would you pray for this thing with me? Um, I was talking to somebody recently, she's single in her 30s, um, would love to be married, but also just going through like a loneliness season, new job, all that stuff. She's like, I can sit in a circle with people who like want a baby, and we we come alongside them, we're like, yes, like let's pray for you a baby, or we can pray for, you know, just a new job. We're like, Yes, well, I'll come around to you. But when it comes to like a spouse or a friend, to like ask it's almost like a thing of shame. Yeah. When we say, can we pray for these things that I have a deep desire for? Um, but so but let's be willing to say it, even if it feels awkward, even if it feels like you can't, um, like that is I think God desires that and would honor it.

SPEAKER_04 28:52

Yeah, He cares about who our friends are. One hundred percent. It's beautiful. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 28:56

We're made for community. Yes, yes. We're made to be in friendship with one another in the body of Christ. Thank you guys. This is such a good conversation.

SPEAKER_04 29:06

Oh my goodness, I love those young women.

SPEAKER_02 29:08

I know. They have so much wisdom.

SPEAKER_04 29:12

They are so wise. So much to say to younger women and and to leaders that they get to lead.

SPEAKER_02 29:19

So what were some of your takeaways, Paige?

SPEAKER_04 29:22

I love how just how rich that was as far as just again, once again, the theme across this whole the whole study and the whole uh all of these episodes has been that Christ is the center of relationships and and and being steeped in him and walking with him and and centered in him is the point where all relationships thrive out of. And so I loved that even there, Corinne. And um and just so kind there's a kindness there, I think, that I've sensed in them as a calm kindness about an approach to friendship that they kind of exuded during that. Yeah, you're right.

SPEAKER_02 30:00

You know, I I felt really convicted even by Amanda's um the moment when she said, you know what, the difference between Christian friendships and friendships in the world is that friendships in the world are often self-serving. It's what can I get out of it? And the reality is I realize that I can fall into that too.

SPEAKER_04 30:19

Absolutely, we can.

SPEAKER_02 30:20

I think about what do I need, what do I want to get out of this? And being just it is challenging to ask the Lord to say, Hey, I'm not here for that. I'm here to pursue you, and I want to do that with other women who also want to pursue you. And that one thing, that one faith, one Lord, that is the thing we have in common, even if we're real different, if we even if our personalities are different, that's the thing that draws us together. And having that thing, that one thing that we're chasing, that we want to become more like Christ together. And that is the foundation of our relationship.

SPEAKER_04 30:59

Right, right. I love that too, because because relationships are not going to thrive if we're self-centered in them. Right. And I love the truth and love piece where we covered that and what they were saying about that. Because even in in that verse, it talks about growth. It's really for growth. Whatever the reason we're having a truth and love conversation, that it's about growing in Christ and becoming more like him.

SPEAKER_02 31:20

And that the standard is Christ Himself. Like the maturity that we're aiming for is the kind of maturity that we see in Jesus Himself as a friend.

SPEAKER_04 31:29

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 31:30

That's so humbling. It is. That that's actually the mark. That's where we're headed, is to become you and me, yeah, just like Jesus.

SPEAKER_04 31:39

Not only be like remaining in him and and totally connected to him and centered in him, but but to become more like him and be a friend more like the friend that he is.

SPEAKER_02 31:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 31:47

Which is wow, that's a big that's a big calling.

SPEAKER_02 31:50

And it's a good one.

SPEAKER_04 31:51

It's a good one.

SPEAKER_02 31:52

But it does take a lot of work. It does take work.

SPEAKER_04 31:55

We're not, yeah, we have to be with Jesus.

SPEAKER_02 31:57

And I actually love that Amanda ended on the note of prayer. Yeah. But that's the first step. And in reality, I realize that's the daily step.

SPEAKER_04 32:05

It is.

SPEAKER_02 32:06

It that's the tether to the empowering spirit that enables us to bear the kind of fruit that creates flourishing relationships. And he knows what we need in relationship. He knows. And we know, and here I want you guys to hear this too. We know there are no solitary Christians.

SPEAKER_04 32:26

No.

SPEAKER_02 32:27

When we are in Christ, y'all, we are made for community in Christ. So if you're praying for a friend, if we're praying for a friend, we know that's a prayer that's in accordance with the Lord's will for us. He wants us to be in close, flourishing relationship with one another. Paige, I actually feel sad. This is our last one.

SPEAKER_04 32:47

I know, it's our last one. And it's been rich, and all that is kind of again, it held the same theme across one throughout that that Jesus is the center of our, we have to be have him as our main relationship, and then everything else is an outpouring of that.

SPEAKER_02 33:03

And so But for you guys, there's so many ways for you to stay connected to this community that is Life Way Women. We host a podcast called Marked, hosted by Angie Elkins and Andrea Lennon. You guys got to meet Andrea in an earlier episode, and they have really rich conversations around Christian faith, around Christian theology, around the Bible, around practical ministry, just wide-ranging conversations that are so helpful.

SPEAKER_04 33:29

Yeah, you can find so many resources uh on lifeway.com and you can find uh follow us online at at Lifeway Women to see kind of what we're saying. Not just advertisements, but we we share rich um just resources, Bible verses, studies, ways to get involved in an online study. Yeah. It's uh we really want to be in your community and and be your friends and sisters at LifeWay Women. We this has been rich, and we we hope this Bible study has been or is being uh a blessing to you.

SPEAKER_02 34:01

Yeah, and if you loved friends and sisters, there are two other fantastic Life Way Women studies. One is called Alive, Growing in Your Faith in Jesus, and it's all about the foundations of our faith. It's a great place to go if you need something next. A renewal of who you are in Christ, your identity in Christ, what it means to be a part of his family, the church. And then there's another one called Devoted. It's 30 Days with Women in the Bible. And as friends and sisters, it's so great. You know, we started with that question: who is the one woman in the Bible you want to be friends with? Y'all could dive into devoted, meet 30 different women in scripture, and then have lots of conversations about who you wish you could be a friend with. Y'all, thank you so much for spending this time with us. We love you. We are thankful for you. As and one day we're gonna get to meet you because you are our friends and our sisters.

SPEAKER_00 34:54

Thank you for listening to the Friends and Sisters podcast. Executive Producers Tina Bosch and Angie Elkins. Producer Chelsea Walk. Engineer Donnie Gordon, edited by Caleb Hoopenmarner, art by Chelsea Walk and Shyla Shufflebean, Photography, Emily Bergeron, Content Editor, Laura Magnus. For a deeper dive, check out the Friends and Sisters Bible study book that accompanies this podcast, linked in the show notes. Your hosts are Tina Bosch and Paige Keaton, recorded at the Lifeway Podcast Studio in Brentwood, Tennessee.