Yesterday my old friend Liz took a Facebook Myers-Briggs test and posted her results to her profile. She got ISFJ. That's what I am...And Liz and I have never been anything alike! (I'd peg her as an ESTJ.) Since she was online, I sent a chat message to her: "The quiz you just took says you're me."

She replied, "I guess we're becoming more similar!"

"I can't believe that...But I can't give an objective opinion, since I've known you most of your life. :)"

What started as a lighthearted, joking conversation turned more serious as Liz asked me, "Are you planning on coming my way anytime soon?" She lives 8 hours away from me (we used to live in the same town), near where we went to college, and I wasn't planning on going down there anytime soon. "Afraid not...," I said. "Why?"

"Well, Ryan [her husband] is going to be gone soon," she began. I knew that--he was going on a confidential mission for the Air Force for a few months. "And you're, like, my best friend. You've always been there."

This was somewhat unexpected. She's been saying things like that a lot lately. We were best friends in 7th, 8th and 9th grade. Shortly after that several things happened and to cause us to start drifting apart. The biggest factor was that she made a few other friends who she got really close to, and began to confide more in them than in me anymore. She was also more mature emotionally than I was, which didn't severely divide us, but it made a difference.

It was okay. We still always hung out together at youth group events, and I followed her wherever she went, including all the way to college, LOL. We weren't roommates because we knew we probably wouldn't be able to stand each other if we lived together. :D So we both made friends that we confided in more than each other throughout college, and we had very different majors--mine was English Education and hers was Business. I don't think we ever had a single class together.

To add to this, she graduated a year ahead of time so she could marry her high school sweetheart, Ryan. To me, that was a pretty resounding end to the closeness we'd once known. I hadn't even met Stephen yet and felt pretty pitiful, thinking of how she'd soared ahead of me in life and gotten everything she wanted. And everything I wanted.

I knew she didn't think of me as her best friend anymore, but I continued to think of her as mine. Even though we'd grown apart, she'd never stopped talking to me or being welcoming me, and that meant a lot to me. I never suspected she would one day start calling me her best friend again.

But as I said, she's been doing that a lot lately. When we're talking in person, it usually comes across as somewhat awkward, LOL, because Liz (being a T! Not an F. Liz. LOL) was never very good at expressing her feelings. So I usually responded to the awkward feeling with a lame attempt at a lighthearted, meaningful, "Awww! That's so sweet!" It usually comes off with a (completely unintended!) tinge of sarcasm. CRINGE! LOL. Friendship drama. :) I really meant what I said, but had no idea how to express it without making her feel more awkward.

But online, on Facebook, I didn't have to sense the awkwardness. So even though I knew it was there, I could easily pretend it wasn't. I could pretend it adequately expressed all the depth of feeling that was there, and respond accordingly. And I was really, really touched. I think in that very moment I set my mind to visiting her. Anyone who goes to the effort to tell me how much she appreciates me, coupled with all the effort she's gone to to visit me a few times, definitely deserves a visit. I knew that Steve and I had tons of trips planned in the next 4 months, but we would just have to work something out. I couldn't let Liz be lonely.

Amidst all these thoughts going on in my head, Elizabeth wrote, "Wow, we're having a deep conversation on Facebook. Weird." :) Liz finds expressing her feelings awkward. And so when she is expressing her feelings, she prefers to do it in person.

I just laughed. I told her I always have deep conversations over Facebook. "It's so much easier when people aren't sitting there, staring in my eyes, waiting for a response!" I joked to her, "Maybe if you're truly becoming more like me, you'll get more used to them."

"Only if I can still have deep conversations in person," Liz said. It could have been interpreted as a pointed statement toward myself. In this moment I knew that I hadn't been being as good a friend to Liz, or to any of the people I call my friends, that I could be. I decided then that I ought to make more effort toward the friendships I want to keep--more effort toward having deep conversations in person, whatever obstacles I had to overcome to do that.

It's amazing what a little letting down of barriers like awkwardness and fear can do to a person and their friendships. Liz may not like online conversations, but somehow I need to tell her that this particular one is what made the difference for me.

I immediately had to write on Stephen's Facebook wall about visiting Liz, to prepare him for the idea. I told him, in so many words, that it was important enough to me that we were going to make it happen somehow. On the way to Platform (a Wed. night service for 20-somethings), I thought of a way to make it happen financially. My grandparents gave me $100 several months ago, for no particular reason other than that I am their granddaughter and they like to show their love by helping me out financially, and I have not touched that money because it felt so undeserved. $100 could buy most of a plane ticket from ******** to *****, where Liz could get me from the airport. I'm convinced that this is as honorable an intent for that money as I could ever have.

When is something we'll have to think on. Steve and I are trying to figure out a couple other trips and it seems kind of crazy to be thinking of yet another one to plan. But he won't be coming with me on this one--it'll be a Liz-and-Stephanie time trip. I don't think I'll even plan to visit other friends I have down there. That would be nice, but I want to devote this weekend to regaining some lost ground between Liz and I. It's such a beautiful, irresistible idea.

This entry has gotten way longer than I expected it to... But I'm glad, because I said everything I wanted to say, pertaining to Liz. God has been teaching me other lessons on friendship, but I think this one is the most important. I'm going to put it in my real journal. :)

-Stephanie