we need each other.

"It's about seeing who a person really is and calling him out to be that person."

"We birth life in others by inviting them into deeper realms of healing, to deeper walks with God, to deeper intimacy with Jesus."

"It is a great gift to know that you see as another sees, an immense pleasure to be understood, to enjoy the easy companionship of one you can let your guard down with."

"When God gives a friend, he is entrusting us with the care of another's heart. It is a chance to mother and to sister, to be a Life giver, to help someone else become the woman she was created to be, to walk alongside her and call her deep heart forth."

"Honest communication in love is the only way to live and grow in friendships."

"You can only have one, two, maybe three intimate friends in your life at any given time. That's just the way of the heart. There is room for more dear friends, but they are a little further out, in the next circle, like Jesus' twelve. Close, but not the ones you would call in need in the middle of the night. And then there are your acquaintances, loose friendships, as Jesus had in the other disciples. It is natural and good to have circles of friendship. Friends will move from one circle to the other, but you can't possibly sustain intimacy with everyone. That said, you also don't want to have intimacy with none. Jesus desires it with us, and he understands that we need it with others as well. He made us that way."

That's just a little taste of all the richness we read in the most recent chapter of Captivating. My favorites. The ones I highlighted/underlined/circled just so I wouldn't miss the importance in each of them.

I am thankful for my friends. Every single one of them. Without friends, I'd absolutely, positively be crazy by now. I think it's pretty fun to look back on all the friends I've had over the years. Some of which I'm still friends with today. Others only lasted for a season in my life, but they still made marks on my heart that I'll never forget.

Don't forget to be thankful for your friends. Especially your very best ones. There's nothing like them in this whole world. It would be a tragedy for us to believe they were any less than that.

You need them and they need you and it's beautiful.

Believe it.