Friendship Fridays: Friends as cheerleaders by Deborah Jenkins

What a thought-provoking post by Deborah Jenkins. I love her picture of a strong friendship that emerged over lockdown via the technology we have available today. Whatever season of life we’re in, we CAN cultivate new friendships! Read on and be encouraged:

Friendship is an art form and practice makes perfect. I went to a prestigious girls’ school where I didn’t fit in for lots of reasons, mostly to do with me, but I couldn’t get the ‘girl group’ thing. I hovered at the edge of friendships, fascinated but afraid. A youth club at the local church was my salvation – a safe place to practise making friends.

I realised it wasn’t a question of one best friend. We need different people to do different bits of life with – funny friends, shopping friends, praying friends, friends for D and Ms (‘Deep and Meaningfuls’). We can be those things for others too. It’s rare to find a friend who is all of them; rarer to be one.

These days I’m blessed with several good friends and enjoy online writer friendships too. One of these groups, The Incomps, is named for the first one of us to get published (Fran Hill, with Miss, what does Incomprehensible Mean?). Then there’s Ruth Leigh (The Isabella Smugge series), Georgie Tennant (The God Who Sees You) and me.

We initially gathered around our PCs to meet the challenge of launching Fran’s first book in Lockdown. But as those hot, lonely weeks wore on, and the Covid crisis deepened, so did our friendship. We shared writing advice, books, parenting tips, life hacks. We still do, almost daily. Frustrations and joys are soothed and celebrated. We laugh a lot, and we pray – for our children, work, health. We send flowers on Publication Days, brownies for a boost.

Writing remains a key feature. We help with query letters, edit pitches, cheer successes, comfort failures. We buy each other’s books and share them on social media. In writing and in life, we are each other’s cheerleaders.

Someone said: Happiness is amazing. It’s so amazing, it doesn’t matter if it’s yours or not.

I would say this to my younger self: Don’t worry that you’re different; everyone is. Look for kindred spirits and find ways to make them happy. It will transform you. It will transform them too.

Deborah Jenkins is an author of fiction, textbooks and educational articles. Her debut novel, Braver was published in June 2022 by Fairlight Books and Winter Lights, a collection of seasonal short stories set in a small town, will be available in November 2023. She lives in Sussex with a Baptist Minister and a cat called Oliver. Deborah blogs at stillwonderinghere.net about life, hope and the crazy, incongruous things that shape us and make us who we are.

Explore friendship with Jesus in Transforming Love. Find it – including a free copy of the introduction and first chapter – here.