Real friendship is inconvenient. I want to say that out loud before anything else, because somewhere along the way we started treating inconvenience like a warning sign.
I have a close friend who does my nails. Recently I cracked a nail (badly) while traveling. I had exactly one day back at home before I turned around and left again, so I texted her and asked if she could fit me in. Being the friend she is, she said yes.
What I did not know was that she had planned to leave early that day. Before I ever sent the text. She had a shift waiting at her other job. And she was hungry. But she saw my situation, the travel, the one window I had, and she let me come anyway.
She did not do that because she is an exceptional professional, although she is. She did it because she is a beautiful friend.
She went out of her way for me. Good friends do. And still, we keep treating that kind of love like something we should apologize for needing.
The text at the wrong hour. The drive across town on the night you have nothing left. The version of them that needs you in a season you barely have enough for yourself. We have learned to guard our peace so carefully that we forgot peace was never meant to mean untouched.
But love touches you. Love costs you. Love goes out of its way.
The goal isn’t to find the friend who never inconveniences you. It’s to find the friend who feels like home.
In Luke 15, Jesus tells a story about a shepherd who has a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders off. The reasonable thing, the safe math, would be to count the ninety-nine still standing there and call it a good day. But the shepherd does not see it that way. He leaves the ninety-nine and goes into the wilderness after the one. He keeps searching until he finds it. And when he does, he does not scold the animal for wandering. He lifts it onto his shoulders and carries her the whole way home, and then he throws a celebration because she was found.
Look at what that search costs him. He leaves the comfortable ninety-nine. He walks into rough country. He keeps going when it would be easier to turn back. Carrying is labor. Shoulders ache. The road home is long. None of it is convenient.
This is how God comes for you. Over and over again.
He goes out of His way.
And because this is how He loves us, it becomes the measure of how we love each other. The friends worth keeping are not the ones who never cost you a thing. They are the ones who came looking for you in your wilderness seasons. The ones who carried you when you could not walk it yourself. The ones who were already halfway out the door, hungry, with somewhere else to be, and made room for you anyway. The ones who have loved every version of you, and counting…
So be that friend. And let yourself be found by that friend.
Be an inconvenience. It’s okay. You are worth it. And so are they.
I wonder…
When did you first learn that your needs could be an inconvenience to someone? How did that shape the way you show up in relationships today?
Where are you currently avoiding being too much in a relationship? What are you not asking for, not saying, not needing out loud?
Is there a friend you have been meaning to reach out to but talked yourself out of it because you didn't want to impose? What is the story you told yourself about why they wouldn't want to hear from you?
I love you.
Coi Marie
Affirmation: I am worth the drive, the detour, and the inconvenient yes.
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