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We love friendship. And we have had a ton of different friendships over the years. Just thinking about all of the many places in the world we have had the opportunity to cultivate friendships at different times throughout our marriage blows my mind! It's TAKE THE FREE MARRIAGE PRAYER CHALLENGEmarriageprayerchallenge.comJennifer (00:10):Hi, and welcome to the Marriage After God podcast.Aaron (00:12):We're your host Aaron and Jennifer Smith.Jennifer (00:14):We have been married 15 years and have five sweet children who are growing up way too fast.Aaron (00:18):We love God and we love marriage,Jennifer (00:20):And we love to be honest about it all.Aaron (00:22):Marriage is not always a walk in the park, but we do believe it has a powerful purpose.Jennifer (00:26):So our goal here is to open up the conversation to talk about our faith and our marriage,Aaron (00:30):Especially in light of the gospel.Jennifer (00:32):We certainly don't have all the answers, but if you stick around, we may just make you laugh.Aaron (00:36):But our hope is to encourage you to chase boldly after God's purpose for your life together.Jennifer (00:40):This is Marriage after God.Speaker 3 (00:45):HeyAaron (00:46):Everybody. Welcome back to another episode of The Marriage After God podcast. We're your hosts back at it.Jennifer (00:52):Be atAaron (00:53):It. Be bag at it. Bag. Got it. . B bag. Get it.Jennifer (00:56):Oh, back at it. BackAaron (00:57):At it. Here we go. Uh, . Today we're gonna be talking about discussing friendships. ThatJennifer (01:05):Was kind of redundant.Aaron (01:05):I know talking about and discussing are both similar things, but we are, we're gonna talk about that, you know, cultivating deep friendships, the necessity of friendships. Also how it can be difficult in our relationships with our friends, um, but how it's all part of the process. And so that's what we're talking about today.Jennifer (01:22):This episode is brought to you by our free 30 day Marriage Prayer Challenge. Simply go to marriage prayer challenge.com to sign up and it's completely free. Over 130,000 husbands and wives have already taken this challenge. Join now and every day you'll receive an email with some scripture and a prompt free for a specific area to pray for your spouse. Just go to marriage prayer challenge.com and sign up today.Aaron (01:46):So we're, um, talking about friends.Jennifer (01:50):We love friends.Aaron (01:52):We have friends.Jennifer (01:53):We've had a lot of different friends over the years, just thinking about all the many places in the world we've been, WeAaron (01:59):Have friends in several countries, and, uh, of course we, we don't see all of them all the time, , but, uh, we have friends in a lot of states too.Jennifer (02:09):Yeah, I feel like I'm really grateful for all the opportunities we've had to cultivate friendships at different times throughout our marriage. And it just kind of blows my mind, Aaron. It's like no matter where we've been, no matter how long, like how long or how short of a time we've been in that place mm-hmm. , God has provided real friendships, deep friendships, but it was up to us to make the choice to invest into those relationships and what they would be like.Aaron (02:36):Yeah, I agree. I we've had many re relationships that we've had to invest in. Uh, but I also feel like that God's used all of those relationships, probably the, the most in our life to, to grow us, to mature us, to point out areas that God wanted us to change in. Um, so not only did we have the benefit of those friends for our joy and that closeness and connection, but also for our spiritual growth and maturity.Jennifer (03:01):Yeah, I totally agree with you. And I think that that happened because of the time we chose to invest into those relationships. And, um, you know, even when hard times came or challenges came, we, we used those opportunities to press on in love and to do our best to cultivate those relationships. And we weren't perfect at it. We, I feel like we're , we're kind say that a lot in every aspect of our life, but it's true. There were mistakes that we made at times. There were things we probably could have done to make friendships easier, you know? Yeah.Aaron (03:35):Or just being better friends in general.Jennifer (03:38):, just like in marriage when when you're in close proximity to another person, and there's sometimes that friction, you know, when our flesh just gets kind of like agitated. That's stickiness. Yeah. Uh, so anyways, that happens. But I feel like nostalgic, just thinking about our friendships over the years and all the laughs, the cries, the pranks we've done together, the catch phrases we've had, the adventures, the games, the games,Aaron (04:04):The staying up late,Jennifer (04:05):The hot tubs, the jacuzzi times discussions we've had. I mean, I'm just, I'm feeling very grateful for all of the different relationships that we've had.Aaron (04:15):Yeah. This topic actually, uh, came up from one of our friends. Mm-hmm. I was at, I went to Portland with a friend to go pick up a part for his tractor or something like that. And I was like, Hey, we need an idea for a topic. And he is like, Huh? He's like, Why don't you talk about like, relationships and friendships and like, how, how awesome they are, but how hard they are and how, And then we just started writing out, I was writing out all these notes and texting him to Jennifer while we were drivingJennifer (04:38):. So thank you, Cody. I know you're listening. Uh, Cody and his wife Stacy and all of their children, we have been good friends with them for almost nine years now. And it's one of those, like, it feels like family.Aaron (04:49):All of our kids have been like friends with their born together almost, and then have been growing up together.Jennifer (04:54):And our goal is to like grow together and live next door. So we're working on that. Aaron (05:00):Isn't that everyone's goal? They just want to have like this, like small community with all their friends living of, of course, every, you know, down the street.Jennifer (05:06):I don't know if everyone feels like that, but it's a good goal.Aaron (05:09):Yeah. All those introverts out there, like Yeah. Right. .Jennifer (05:12):Well, we thought we would just kind of ask each other a couple of questions about friendship and get the, the conversation started. AndAaron (05:20):I like, I actually like this format because when I've been, I was praying about this episode today and I was thinking, Man, I don't feel like I've gotta handle a grasp on this idea of like being a good friend. It's something that I'm constantly learning. And Fri friendships are hard at times, especially when you, you allow yourself to be so close. So I like that we're gonna be asking these questions, and I just want everyone that's listening to know our heart is to, again, we always to encourage you and to remind you that you're not alone. That God has plans for us and that he desires us to grow in, in oneness and unity with his body of the church. And so, hopefully just us going back and forth answering some questions, you glean something out of it.Jennifer (06:00):And my encouragement to you guys listening would be if you, uh, already have strong friendships in your life, our hope would be that this episode just inspires you with some creative ways to, uh, engage in your friendships and, and cultivate them in deep ways. And if you're listening and you already are thinking like, Man, I really want that. I want a deep friendship. I want, uh, friendship, like friendships of married couples where, you know, you and your spouse are friends with another couple, um, our heart and prayer is just that, that God would provide that for you and that you would be willing to invest in mm-hmm. those friendships and so all around. Yeah. We just hope that this is a good episode that encourages you.Aaron (06:42):All right. So let's get, we have some questions here, and then we'll just go back and forth. All right. Let's do it. So the, here I'll ask you the first question. Okay. What did friendship look like for you growing up?Jennifer (06:53):Well, I come from a big family and like my family's families were even bigger. And so I had a lot of aunts and uncles, a lot of cousins. Friendship for our family was our family. Like, there wasn't a lot of outside friendship. We were all friends with each other. And so as I grew up and I was going to school, like I started building friendships a little bit later mm-hmm. , like junior high, high school. Um, but yeah, that's kind of what it like most like hangout time or events, Everything was surrounded around our big familyAaron (07:25):. But you had a, you had a few core friends growing up. Yeah. Yep.Jennifer (07:30):Yeah. Like two, three girlfriends that I was close to. Yeah. I think maybe a few more than that.Aaron (07:34):I think it was, um, very similar for me. I had, um, not in the fr the family or actually opposite, um, we saw Yeah.Jennifer (07:42):Your family was, had a lot of friends.Aaron (07:44):Yeah. Our family had a lot of friends, and we saw our direct family periodically throughout the year. And so I saw a different example mm-hmm. . Um, but I had a, I feel like I had, I had two really good friends growing up. Um, and I'm no longer like that close with them anymore. We just, we've moved on. But that was my kind of experience was I just had a couple that we did everythingJennifer (08:08):, and really quickly I'll share, and I think I speak for both of us. We both had a desire when we were, you know, 18, 19, 20 to marry our best friend. And so when we met and started building our friendship, Aaron, we, we cultivated it knowing that we were moving towards marriage and there was this really beautiful aspect to our friendship, knowing that we were gonna be friends in marriage and I don't know about you. Yeah. I love that. Yeah. Even now, I feel like you'reAaron (08:34):My best friend friends first. Yeah. And it never changed. I feel like you are my best friend. Yeah.Jennifer (08:38):Good . Awesome. All right. Well, the next question is, what was your desire for friendship? So going back to childhood or growing up times. Like what, what did you seek in a friendship? What did you want?Aaron (08:52):Uh, I think that, so friendship was one of those things where I just could, could go be me and hang out with that person that I enjoyed being around. Mm-hmm. . And it was like a, it was a get outta my house, go to their house, whole new environment. Yeah. AndJennifer (09:05):Eat their snacks and theirAaron (09:06):Cap. They always had. Oh, that's like, they, they always had snacks.Jennifer (09:09):My friends always had better snacks than like, That's true. MoreAaron (09:12):Like moon pies,Jennifer (09:13):. What? That's, that's them good. Sorry. I loved them.Aaron (09:16):No, I didn't have moon pies in my house. No. Uh, so my desire for friendship I think was more of like, just kind of escape, having my own my own zone. And my friends were that zone.Jennifer (09:27):I can't stop thinking about how gross moon pies are, but you know, it's good. oatmeal pies. It'sAaron (09:31):Gram crackers, chocolate and marshmallows.Jennifer (09:33):What's that gonna, I don't know. There's something about it, but oatmeal pies are really good. Okay. See's good to have differences in friendships. See, Yeah. so that only one person is eating all the moon pies. .Aaron (09:44):What was your desire for friendship? What did, was there something there? Oh,Jennifer (09:47):I'm serious again. Yeah, I'm getting back to it. Um, I really desired to have, uh, a closeness in relationship where you can share deep thoughts or, uh, experiences together. You know, go do things together, which I often did with my girlfriends, so I appreciated that. Yeah.Aaron (10:04):So some of these questions will, those are, these are kind of like, been past like, ways of viewing friendship, but the friendship we're talking about now goes beyond what we kind of used to experience it like in junior high, high school, like grade school. But we're talking about deep relationship mm-hmm. , friendship. Mm-hmm. , you know, with other believers. Uh, so what has been the greatest thing about those kinds of friendships?Jennifer (10:28):Can you answer that first ? Sure.Aaron (10:30):Uh, I, I would say I, I love, I love having friends who know me, who love me. Um, and that, that means they, they share with me things that they see weak, like weaknesses they see in me. Mm-hmm. , but also they, they just enjoy me mm-hmm. and want to be around me. And, um, and I, those are, those are really cool things. Yeah.Jennifer (10:55):So there's two things that come to mind for me. The first thing is when you're known by a friend, special things happen. So they get you your favorite drink at random times or they'll, you know, they just, they know you so well that they tune in to who you are and what you like. And that makes you feel loved and special and like, thought of, which I really appreciate in friendship. Yeah. And the other thing is spontaneity. So, you know, just the random, Hey, what are you doing for dinner? Come over and not really even needing to make a plan. That makes me feel like our, our friendship is so close because there's the reliance upon each other and like a camaraderie of let's do this thing together. Even if it's short notice. I don't know why. I just love that.Aaron (11:37):Okay. So we talked about the greatest thing and there's lot, probably lots of things we could talk about, like how great it's to have a good friend. But what's a hard thing about these kinds of friendships?Jennifer (11:48):The absolute hardest thing about friendship for me is conflict. And when I know that, that I've hurt someone or said the wrong thing, or wasn't very clear in a text message and I've made someone feel a certain way, negatively sense, Yeah. Sensitive sensitivity is that I really struggle with. Cuz I don't, I'm a, I, I want peace and I want love and I want joy and I don't want the hard stuff. And so when I'm confronted with the hard stuff and there needs to be a conversation or, you know, let's flesh this thing out, Even those, those things, even though those things are really good and God has his special way of working through us in those things. Mm-hmm. , it's really hard.Aaron (12:29):That's true. Um, I would agree. A an additional layer to it. Um, cuz I, I just, I don't, like, no one likes conflict. I know there's,Jennifer (12:37):Do you feel like you're okay with it? Like, uh,Aaron (12:40):I used to be a lot more like, Yeah, lets, let's argue and let's figure this stuff out. I don't like it at as much anymore. Um, uh, I think though there's a, there's a part of me cuz I, I have multiple friends and I don't like when there's conflict between my other friends and I have these friends and I'm like, do I, like, where do I lay in the middle of this? Oh, got. So I don't like that feeling. And so, but which is a, it's a good thing cuz then it caused me like, how can I participate in helping these friends mm-hmm. , which got you in that. That's good. Yeah. So, but I, I hate that. Yeah. It's just, it, I don't know if anyone is like, yay. You know, hard, hard times friends. Um,Jennifer (13:18):There's hard things about friendships. Yeah. All right. Uh…
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