When Making Friends is Difficult with Kate Allen
This week on the podcast, we are in for a special treat- I interviewed my daughter Kate! She full of wisdom, and I know you guys are going to love this episode. We’ve included some key points from the podcast below, but make sure to listen and hear the full episode!
OUR FRIENDSHIP
Kate and I have become really good friends in the last few years. I never expected for my daughter to be one of my best friends, but she is. We both were feeling lonely in different ways, but here’s how Kate explains that year for her:
“I went through some friend drama. We went into freshman year and became this little clique right out of insecurity of needing that “high school friend group”. As anything that is built on that, it fell apart during second semester. We all started fighting like cats and dogs, and somewhere in the middle of that, I found myself with no friends and everyone was mad at me. It was tense with everybody. And I didn't tell my mom or really anybody for probably two weeks, because I really wasn't walking with the Lord at that time. Some of the things they were saying about me was valid, and so it was a little embarrassing.
I remember breaking down and calling you- I was so lonely and it was a really dark time. You have always said, “Hey, if you ever need counseling for any reason, we're so for that”. I called you and I told you it was just about friends. And that night we got sushi and walked around Town Lake and just talked it all out.
I remember in that season, I really didn't have anything to do on the weekends because I wasn't getting invited to anything. I remember for that following month hanging out with you and you were so good to push me towards Scripture. That season consisted of hanging out with my mom and reading my Bible. It sounds really sad, but it was the season that shifted everything for me, and God was so gracious to tear that identity out of friends. And obviously I still struggle with that, but we became such good friends in that season and so I'm really thankful for you.”
At the same time Kate was going through all this, I was desperately missing my sisters. That night we went to sushi and walked around town, I realized exactly what I was missing. I missed the easy person that I feel safe with, that I love, that I can tell anything.
We were both experiencing each other as friends for the first time. I knew I would probably never live in the same town as my sisters again, but I didn’t realize my best friend was living in my house.
THE MOVE
About a year later we sat Kate down in our living room in Austin, Texas and told her we were moving to Dallas. She’s had to jump into a very large public high school with no connections or friends. I am so proud of the way she handled this shift.
“I think about that day sitting on the couch and I was in complete denial. It wasn't really the fear of the unknown. It was the instant loss of everything I'd ever known and a future that I think I just mentally felt entitled to. Just in a second, it was gone and so random. I went to my room and couldn't even make it to my bed. I fell on the floor crying and just stayed in there for the rest of the day.
I was coming off of a sweet season. God had shifted my priorities and helped me get a bigger perspective, which all of it was in preparation for this. I look back at it and I remember after my friends started inviting me back to things, I'd sit there and I would be so lonely because I realized how different our perspectives were then. I realized the fleetingness of everything that we had been talking about that past year.
All I did was grab three people that I thought got it. I said, “we talk about and we say we love Jesus, but we literally never talk about Jesus outside of school”. And we just started that conversation. At the time, I didn't view it as ministry, I didn't view it as discipleship. I just saw it as desperation and needing friends that were on the same page as me.”
Kate took that same attitude of culture building and initiating into the move with her.
CULTURE BUILDING
“Coming off of that hard season, I think that was the most helpful thing going into a new school. I learned what it looks like to culture build in a way that's not necessarily going along and conforming to the culture that you're already in, but it's finding your people and camping out and talking about what you love, and it needs to be Jesus. I still talk to those people all the time.
When I moved, I started running cross country and that was where I got to talk to people while we were running. And this sounds so sad, but it was literally the best thing. This wasn’t my idea, but I have a question book, and it has all kinds of questions ranging from, “what if you were a natural disaster, what natural disaster would you be to”, to “what does the Gospel mean today for you?”- funny, hard soul wrenching, all the things. I would just pray before that the Holy Spirit would give me the right questions to ask for each person. I remember walking away from certain runs feeling so full because I got to really get to know these people. And in a really big school, and honestly just the world, you can know a lot of people but not know anyone.
In that big public school, people do not feel known and they're putting out this persona of what they want to look like to people. And the second that you start chipping away and showing that you really want to know more about them, they break and they take a deep breath and realize it’s exhausting.”
A friend recently asked me how Zac and I built such secure teenagers. First of all, that’s God. Second of all, we weren’t afraid to push them into uncomfortable things. They have learned to be comfortable with discomfort. Everyone knows the feeling of being a new kid, even as an adult.
When Kate described what she was feeling during the move, I felt the same way. I had to make all new friends too. I was terrified it wouldn’t happen for me. I was scared I wouldn’t find the community I craved. Watching my daughter be intentional and lean into deep conversations spurred me on to seek out those relationships too.
Kate walked out of that year with three or four incredible friends. During the move, we didn’t pray for a big group. We didn’t pray for a huge community. We prayed for one friend. Just for one friend to understand her and walk in a similar place of maturity with the Lord.
He answered that prayer.
“I moved from a school where I had my group of people versus now where I have a couple people, and then I have a lot of just friends branched out of that. Those couple people fill me up so I can branch out and be a fill-up person for other people.”
WHAT IF I’M IN A SEASON OF FRIENDSHIP THAT FEELS HARD?
I know so many of you are in a season of friendship that is hard. You don’t have your fill-up people. You have no community. I asked Kate what she would say to you, and here’s her answer:
“I’d say not even having that one person is also God's kindness. In that season, that is so hard. But, I remember in that season when I would be hanging out and you're initiating the conversation and you just don't relate to any of it and it's just hard and lonely. Now, when I walk into a room and I know everybody, I don't really talk to God in those spaces because I think, “oh, I don’t need it. I'm comfortable, I've got my people”. But being in a group of people where you don't really know where everybody stands, you don't feel like you're on the same page with everybody, it creates a dependence in your head. You just pray over the words and you just keep praying continually, “I’m filled in the truth of the Gospel and I don't have to measure up to these people”. Sometimes I would leave and feel a pit in my stomach because I didn’t think I measured up to these people. I wasn’t the person that these people needed me to be. God stripped my identity from friends so that I didn’t put my identity in it and wasn’t leaning on that or what other people thought of me.”
FILL UP AND POUR OUT PEOPLE
There were times when Kate wanted to give up and stop taking risks with friendships. It is tiring to continue to initiate. She talked about a great principle she has when it comes to friendships. There was a time when Kate’s primary community was older, mentor type figures, and she talked about how that helped her fill up and continue to reach out to people.
“I remember in that season, whether I was talking to you or other mentors in my life, that was a big source of community. And that's where you get filled up, and then you're able to pour out, because you need those people. It changes for me. The percentage of time that I'm with people that encouraged me and I feel full versus the people that might drain me more. When the Bible says “don't surround yourselves with fools”, he's talking about in that group of your core fill-up people that you go to for encouragement. You need to be going out to people that don't know Jesus or might be those drain people. For me, the percentage of time, at my very healthiest, it's 50/50. It's 50% hanging out with fill-up people and 50% hanging out with pour-out people. I'd say most seasons it's 75/25, and then I need that encouragement, because I'm weak and I like to go with the culture and conform. I need that group of people that are encouraging me to be better so that I can really go be that 100% for those pour-out people. If I'm not really filled up, then I'm really not giving anything to those people that I'm pouring out to. If I'm just working out of my own power and my own energy level that I might have that day, as opposed to actually being what God wants for that person.
I even made a list of who my fill-up people are and who my pour-out people are. Then I had to figure what it looked like in a schedule with those people. How much time was I getting with each?”
HOW TO HANDLE CONFLICT IN FRIENDSHIPS
I don’t want you to think Kate and I’s friendship is perfect. We definitely fight. Even this last week, it felt like every time we saw each other we had to “gear up.” It was a bunch of little things that had built up and not been talked about.
So we went to sushi.
If you haven’t had conflict, you’re not good friends. You have to be able to conflict well. I still have to parent Kate, and there’s tension in that. We both let each other talk, and we understood after how we had been neglecting each other or hurting each other.
I am so proud of my daughter. I’m so thankful for our friendship. I hope this spurred you on and I am praying you step out to find your community too!
Initiate. Engage. Go first.
