Coffee, Books, and Friends

It was more than eighteen years ago that I lived with my sister Katrina and her family. As a twenty-something, recent college graduate, I moved in when her cancer returned for the second time and she needed extra help with her kids and home.

One morning Katrina told me that she was lonely. It was a surprising statement from her—she was always surrounded by people. She told me that she knew a lot of people, but then stated honestly, “I have a lot of acquaintances, but I don’t have any friends.”

She told me she’d been praying and had in mind some women she wanted to invite to her house for a weekly book study—a Bible study, of sorts. And even though she didn’t know any of the women very well, she felt like they were the ones God wanted her to invite into her home.

A few weeks later, I was seated at her kitchen table with a cup of coffee in my hands, a plate of cookies and a new book in front of me. I looked around at the group of women; women I did not know, but who had all agreed to join my sister for her book club. I, being the younger sister, was included simply because of my relationship to Katrina and my proximity.

Something happened over those shared cups of coffee, chapters read and questions answered, prayer requests vocalized, tears shed, and joys celebrated—Katrina found the friendships for which she had prayed. And I, simply a bystander, found them too.

As I think back on that time, I realize that the legacy of my sister—the prayer of her heart—was not just for her, but for me as well.

There are times when we can wonder if it’s frivolous to pray that we’d find friends, but Scripture tells us that if we delight ourselves in the Lord, he’ll give us the desires of our heart. Katrina’s longing for good friends wasn’t shallow; God created us to be in community with one another, and I believe it’s his desire that we’d have friends to encourage and support us, and we them.

Today’s Act of Friendship: If you are lonely, pray that God would bring a good friend into your life.