Several weeks ago was the first week of fifth grade, or middle school, for my oldest daughter, Lillian.

She got into the car quiet as a mouse when I picked her up at the end of her first day, and little by little, as the evening wore on, she began to share about the events of the day and what had made her so quiet in the car.

Turns out she felt at the end of the day like so many of us remember feeling at the end of a day of middle school – a little unnoticed, a little faded into the background, a little like an old piece on a patchwork quilt.  Part of that feeling was a result of her quiet personality, and part of that feeling was just what goes along with the territory of middle school. She faded into the background at lunch, she faded into the background in class, and overall, she ended the day feeling…alone.  Even though she was surrounded by 64 classmates.

All summer (and let’s be honest, pretty much for all their lives) I’ve been praying for that “one friend” for my daughters…all four of them.  Because let’s face it, with four girls to raise, what else does one pray about at this phase of life besides friendships, sassy backtalk, and emotional drama?

If you’re a woman, when you hear the phrase “one friend,” you know who I’m talking about.  That “one friend” who saves you a seat at her lunch table come hell or high water.  That “one friend” who chooses you in class, no matter who the new girl or the cool girl is.  That “one friend” who invites you over on a Friday night, even if the most exciting thing you are going to do is sleep on her family’s pullout couch and watch a Fred Astaire musical…again.

I had a friend like that.  And she was a best friend in every sense of the word.  She was the cool kid and let’s just say I was…not.  But she always choose me.  And next to her I always felt like my place was secure.  And if I wasn’t picked on a Friday night by anyone else, it was ok, because I knew I would always be picked by her.

And that’s who I’ve been praying for for my girls.  And if we are honest, I think a lot of mommas pray that for their girls.  Because for some reason, we think our daughters can endure and weather anything as long as they have that “one friend.”

So last week when I began to pray my “one friend” prayer for my daughters once again, the Lord quietly responded with a simple statement in my heart: “You might be praying the wrong prayer.”

And immediately the words of Ephesians 3:17-19 came to mind: “And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge – that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”

Pause.

Apparently, being filled up with all the fullness of God, being rooted and grounded in His unchanging love, experiencing the height and depth, the length and width of a crucified Christ has nothing to do with having that “one friend.”

This was news to my heart.  Not to my head – I’ve known these verses, memorized these verses, prayed these verses for years.  But this time, the scripture translated to my heart.

My prayer for my daughters does not need to be, “O God, give them just one friend.”  My prayer needs to be, “O God, no matter what happens in my daughters’ day, fill them up with all the fullness of Christ.  Let them be so rooted and grounded in Your love, that no matter what happens, the knowledge of Your love, the knowledge that You are with them and always choose them and love to be with them, trumps any knowledge of despair, fear, shame, rejection, embarrassment, or sadness they might feel.  Lord, would You please be their One Friend?”

And I am telling you, my heart flooded with peace when I prayed that prayer.  Because that way, the pressure is off people.  It’s off that “one friend” or any friend for that matter to perform in a way that communicates unconditional love and acceptance.  And that pressure is transferred to God.  And I can count on Him as a mom of four daughters to love each and every one of them through every situation.  I can count on Him to choose them every single time.  I can lean on Him to provide in their hearts what no human heart can ever provide – the rooting and grounding nature of the unchanging nature of the love of Christ.

And that gives this momma’s heart peace.

I had to repent for the lenses I had been wearing and the expectations I had been placing on other people – fifth, third, and first grade people for that matter! – to be something to my girls no one could ever be except the Lord.  And I have been praying that prayer consistently ever since the Lord deposited it in my heart.

I don’t know what your prayers for your child or children have been over the summer or fall, and I don’t know what your expectations are when it comes to friends.  But I can tell you this, you and I both will be disappointed if we are waiting on that “one friend,” for our children, or even for ourselves.  Because what I am finding is that my daughter’s middle school feelings have the ability to pull up my own middle school feelings from years ago and make my feel like a fifth grader at a lunch table all over again.  And even as a forty-year-old, I have found myself praying that “one friend” prayer, hoping a human can deliver for me what only God can provide.

Because at some point, as an eleven-year-old or as a forty-year-old, the expectation of a “one friend” is going to fail you.  And what I am learning is that God designed it that way for a purpose.

Because how else in the world would we ever come to know and experience the love that never fails us if we could find it in a fifth grade classroom or at a forty-year-old lunch table?  And maybe that’s what the Lord wants to teach you and me and our children this school year.  Stop asking for the things that can’t help but let you down, and start asking for the one love, the one friend, that hung on a cross so that He could lift you to Himself and never let you down.  He truly is your Perfect Friend.

Some of you may have read this post last week, only to find it disappear from my blog site – I apologize for that error!  Last week’s post was meant to be Top Ten Things I Learned from a Hurricane, and this week’s post was supposed to be today’s, Finding a Friend.  I am trusting the timing on when it was read – last week or this week – was sovereignly ordained for each and every heart.  As always, thank you for being patient with me and all my technological errors!

Trusting the One Friend who never fails,

Susannah