What My Friend Needed

In humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

—Philippians 2:3–4

Kristi had offered their home for a Friday night baby shower. That Friday morning, though, I heard from Kristi. Her healthy, active mom had gone to the ER and come home with a diagnosis of advanced liver cancer. Kristi was seven months pregnant, but they got permission from their doctor to leave that night to be with her mother in Calgary.

When I put myself in her place, I thought the last thing she needed was the pressure to leave the house perfect for entertaining. I told her we’d host, that I didn’t want her to have to do one more thing.

You didn’t tell them to move houses, did you? I told you. I want to do this. Kristi’s eyes filled with tears. It’s all done. We’re ready. I need to know that something will stay the way it was.

Then I understood. What I may have needed didn’t matter. What my friend needed was totally different. She needed to know that something was going as planned while everything else felt so deeply out of control. We don’t learn to love each other well in the easy moments. Love is born when we misunderstand one another and make it right.