Dear Hildegaard

Triceratops horns and friendship with the world

Photo by Helena Lopes on Unsplash

Dear Hildegaard,

Sometimes, at night, I must tiptoe into your room and remove the hard, plastic dinosaurs from your bed. It’s not that you didn’t arrange them beautifully - you did - but the triceratops’ horns might scratch your face while you sleep (it’s happened before), so I gently steal them and line them up on your whale rug, hoping you won’t analyze how they moved themselves while you were asleep.

My belly is swelling with your baby brother, Richard, but we still have the summer before he arrives. What will we do with ourselves? Eat dozens of popsicles, I imagine, and fill up your water table with the garden hose, plant tomatoes, cucumbers, and basil, as you try to sneak up behind me with cups full of water. You get a look in your eyes, Hilde, when you do this - a twinkle of sheer, ornery glee - that is both terrifying and funny. As if nothing else in the world makes you quite as happy as surprising Mommy.

I am always wondering who you will become. And now, I also wonder who your brother will become. I am convinced, from my thirty-eight years on this earth, that it will have much to do with who you choose as your friends. Who you choose to confide in, defend, trust, and imitate. This is some old-school Proverbs wisdom, but iron really does “sharpen iron” (Prov. 27:17) and “wounds from a sincere friend” really are “better than many kisses from an enemy.” (27:6). The friends who love you enough to tell you when you’re walking down a bad path are a gift. Keep them close.

And a friend who will risk hurting your feelings for the sake of your soul is the rarest find, the kind of friend who loves you more than they love being loved by you. I have begun to pray this kind of friend for both you and Richard, because I have seen how it can shape the entire course of one’s life. The Apostle, James, doesn’t pull any punches. You adulterous people, he writes, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. (James 4:4) The people we love are the people who will shape our loves.

This is true, too, of who you marry (if you marry). That relationship will determine where you live, work, and serve. The two of you, together, will make these decisions - it will no longer be solely your own choice - for you will be one with someone else. And it will influence which parts of yourself you feel supported to nurture. Does your husband love your giftings? Does Richard’s wife appreciate his creativity? Our spouse has so much power to encourage, or discourage, our dreams and gifts. And we hold that same power in their lives.

I want you to marry someone who delights to see you flourish and be used by God. The kind of husband who, when he comes home and sees you sitting at the kitchen table with a neighbor, bearing their burdens over coffee, asks the two of you: What can I get you? and smiles. Rather than the kind of husband who sighs inwardly, wishing he had you all to himself at all times. You need time together, just the two of you, to be sure. But it is a special kind of man who loves to see his wife worship in deed and truth.

Whether in friendship or marriage, the relationships you water with your time and love are the ones which will take root in your life, for better or worse. The Bible talks about this so often, but I fear we ignore these verses. We want to be liked by the person who has clout. We want to be friends with the people who tell us what we want to hear. We like to be flattered rather than challenged. But, beloved, the friends God has put in my life who know when to encourage and when to correct me in love, including your Dad, are the friends God has used to keep me in the faith, on this narrow path of Christ, and in the joy of the Lord. I shiver to think where I would be without them.

So consider your friendships soberly. Pray to God for faithful, godly friends. You will need them if you want the strength to reach out to those with no friends; those who are hurting, lost and confused. You must have a few pillars in your life to hold up your arms, like Aaron and Hur did for Moses, when you grow weary. And you will. I pray that you and Richard will both seek to be the kind of friend that is a pillar - a light - in return.

For now, your plastic dinos and our black cat, Ronnie, are your best friends. And I smile to think of what good friends they are. But the days are coming when you will choose lifelong buddies. I am excited to see who they are, and to invite them over to play in our summer yard, so you can share juice boxes and fish crackers. There is so much good ahead, beloved.