Today, I want to talk about friendship.
Not the loud, celebratory kind—but the quiet, steady kind that shows up when life feels heavy.
This week has been one of those weeks.
The kind that presses in slowly.
The kind that reminds you of time passing.
The kind that makes you feel the weight of midlife—watching parents age, witnessing their struggles, feeling the tenderness and fear that comes with loving people who are no longer invincible.
The kind where a phone call comes that stops you cold—a friend rushed to the hospital with a heart attack—and suddenly the fragility of it all feels too close.
And then there’s the new year.
A blank page.
In some ways, it’s exciting—an invitation to reset, to begin again, to dream fresh dreams.
But in other ways, it can feel daunting. Heavy with expectation. Heavy with goals—personal, professional, emotional, physical—many of them self-imposed, all of them demanding energy you don’t always feel you have.
Some days, the weight just sits there.
And then… a friend calls.
Or rather—I reach out. Almost absentmindedly. To someone I haven’t spoken to in a long time.
No agenda.
No perfect timing.
Just honesty.
And pound by pound, the weight begins to lift.
The conversation isn’t dramatic. There’s no grand revelation. But there is laughter. Perspective. A spark. A sentence so simple it almost goes unnoticed—except it lands exactly where it’s needed.
Something comes alive again.
Creativity stirs.
Ideas return.
Energy shifts.
Hope flickers.
And then—on the very same day—another friend shows up at my door with lunch. Just to say hello. Completely unaware of the loneliness that had quietly settled in. Completely unaware of how perfectly timed her presence was.
But God knew.
And once again, I’m reminded:
Friendship is holy.
Sometimes friends are angels sent at just the right moment—to say the right thing, to do the simplest thing, to remind us we are not alone. To gently pull us back toward the light when we’ve drifted into the shadows.
Reflection
Maybe you’re reading this feeling the same quiet heaviness.
Maybe you’re standing at a threshold—between who you’ve been and who you’re becoming. Between grief and hope. Between exhaustion and possibility.
And maybe what you need isn’t a solution.
Maybe you need a voice.
A laugh.
A memory.
A reminder of who you are when you’re not carrying everything alone.
Friendship doesn’t always fix what’s broken—but it often shifts the weight just enough to help us stand again.
Sometimes all it takes is one conversation to change the temperature of the soul.
A Gentle Challenge
Today, I invite you to do something simple.
Call a friend.
Someone you haven’t spoken to in a while.
Someone who once knew your heart.
Someone who might need your voice just as much as you need theirs.
You never know what a small conversation might do.
You never know how far a little encouragement can ripple outward.
You never know when you might be the spark that shifts the energy and ignites change.
Be the light.
Be the call.
Be the reminder.
Sometimes friendship doesn’t just brighten a day—it changes the direction of a season.
And that can make all the difference.
Honouring the Friends Who Brought Light to Heavy Days
And so I end this reflection with gratitude—thank you, Wendy Holmes, for being the steady voice on the other end of the line; thank you, Liza, for the unexpected drop-by that lifted more than you knew; and thank you, Jon, Stephen, and Daniel, for the faithful friendship, the uplifting calls, and the timely check-ins that always seem to come right when I need them most. And to the many others who have stepped into the gap over the years—thank you for being the spark, the reminder, the call that changed everything.