Soul Filling Friendship

by Miss Lynn on February 13, 2015

True friends can be hard to find, especially for moms who busy themselves at home, as homemakers do. Do you ever find yourself feeling lonely for a friend who shares your heart for the Lord, fills your emotional and spiritual cup, and makes you want to be a better person after having spent time with her? Does it seem impossible to find a friend who initiates praying together, has similar family values and ideals and wants to talk about it, or shares with you what the Lord has been teaching her? It can be really hard to find like-minded depth of friendship for ourselves as moms, and its even harder to find good friend matches for each and every individual within our family. Although this is a struggle common in many families, we who closely disciple our children, can take heart in the amazing thought that someday, our children will grow up to become the closest of soul-filing friends in our lives, and we will be theirs.

Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. John 15:13

Though we will have to wait for many years to realize this dream of soul filling friendship while our children are still small, we can be encouraged that there is much purpose in the continuous investing into relationships with each precious child, and initiating special times together for the purpose of creating closeness. When we talk together at the dinner table every night, plan and go out on special ‘mommy and me’ or ‘daddy and me’ dates, have intimate “tea for two” times, do service projects together, worship together at home, etc.; we are slowly building heart connections over the years with our children. We are building friendships that will eventually have the depth of intimacy that our souls have always been longing and waiting for in a friendship. As our children mature, we will have interesting and rich conversation with friends who truly love to talk about things that matter, and who love what we love. Though deep friendship with one’s own children is the desire of many, how many are willing to pay the price? Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. If we are willing to lay down our lives to disciple our children at home, the true friendship that results may just be God’s richest reward we ever experience.

Parents are designed by God to spiritually feed their children– literally as a nursing mother nurtures her infant. The Bible uses nurturing language to picture Biblical discipleship, which is very much how a parent should cultivate the life of Christ in a child: “as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children.” The words Paul uses to describe parents are: “gentle… tender… caring… exhorting… encouraging… imploring.” These heartfelt, warm, nurturing words describe the parent-child relationship. To more fully grasp how our children are spiritually fed from the very substance of our own hearts, think of the relationship between a nursing mother and a baby who receives daily sustenance from the mother’s own body. Metaphorically, our children are designed by God to receive spiritual food from us in the same way, directly from the life of God that fills our own hearts and lives. And as unnatural (and exasperating to the infant) as it is to deny the nursing baby its mothers milk, its the same in sending our children away for their spiritual food. “Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.” Ephesians 6:4 In other words, sending our children away for spiritual sustenance can actually lead to frustration in our children, because children are designed to receive spiritual training from parents, especially dad. Children are designed by God to have a need, a void, an expectation for spiritual nurturing, and that hole can really only be filled by the spiritual food that is shared daily from the heart of parents.

As we lay down our lives to nurture our children, someday the friendships we have built with them will nurture us in return. Someday we will look into the eyes of our beloved children and realize that they have become our dearest friends. Then our hearts will find rest in their searching and exclaim, my soul is filled when I am with you! Discipleship at home that lavishly nurtures will someday provide the most soul satisfying relationships we could dream of.