It made it easy to stay home on Sundays and get lost in a book or a TV show instead of a church service. Because there was always this lingering sense of showing up in a place where everyone else seemed to have it together, where everyone else was welcome, and where we just felt lost.

One Sunday night my fantastic step-mom, Wanda, announced I was going to church. She would keep Jackson, and my dad and I would head to church. Honestly, the only part of that suggestion that was appealing to me was the thought of two whole hours without a demanding, crying infant. I would have gone just about anywhere for that kind of break.

We walked in and the place was packed. At the time my parents’ church was meeting in a high school auditorium. There was the wooden stage in front and the long hall-like room it looked out over. Hundreds of folding chairs lined the place from side to side and the band was already warming up on stage.

I sat down while everyone else around me was excitedly, happily hugging and greeting one another. I sat down and looked at my feet. I sat down lost and completely disassociated from the faith that used to come so naturally to me. I sat down and didn’t feel anything.

And then I looked up and saw Jesus.

I mean, as clearly as the eye of your heart can show you something, I just knew He was up there on that stage standing amidst the ultra-hip band members that had always intimidated me. I realize how wild it sounds, but all I can tell you is what I knew in that moment, what the Spirit showed me deep down in my wildly pounding heart. I couldn’t hardly swallow, the blood was ringing in my ears, and I knew for certain that Jesus was real and that He looking at me.

He looked into my lonely desperate self and His face broke out into this wild, crazy-happy grin. And then He just leaped right off that stage and came running toward me, sweeping chairs and music stands out of His way, and yelling over and over again, “You came! Oh you came! I’m so HAPPY you came!”

And then He was right there in front of my row grabbing me off my feet and hugging me like a lunatic and jumping and dancing in glee and whooping, “I’m so happy you came. I’m SO glad!” And something hard as lead in my heart cracked and melted into the gut deep assurance that He loved me, just as I was.  He loved me, He loved me, He loved me.

Even when I didn’t feel loveable or lovely or loved.

I’ll never forget. I’ll never forget his unbridled excitement that I had come to spend time in His Father’s house. That I had brought my sadness and confusion home. And He didn’t even bother mentioning any of that; He was too thrilled just to be together.

And in that moment none of the questions I had for Him mattered. In that moment there was just the joy of being wanted and the sense of belonging no matter how displaced my circumstances were. And it felt like this

It’s been a while since I thought about that night. Eleven years ago since it took place. But today, during worship at church, it all came back and I stood there with this goofy grin on my face remembering the God who will leap chairs, hymnals and any other baggage between us and Him to get His hands on us and His arms wrapped tight around us.

And I thought there might be someone out there who needed to know that. Someone like me. Someone lost and lonely and desperate for answers. I can’t offer you any of those; I wish I could. But I can tell you with absolute certainty that there is a God who is buck wild about you and HE is the answer.

And all you have to do is show up. At church, in the laundry room, locked behind the bathroom door.

Just go ready to meet Him. And let Him do the rest.

When he was still a long way off, his father saw him. His heart pounding, he ran out, embraced him, and kissed him. The son started his speech: ‘Father, I’ve sinned against God, I’ve sinned before you; I don’t deserve to be called your son ever again.’ But the father wasn’t listening. He was calling to the servants, ‘Quick. Bring a clean set of clothes and dress him. Put the family ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Then get a grain-fed heifer and roast it. We’re going to feast! We’re going to have a wonderful time!

My son is here—given up for dead and now alive! Given up for lost and now found!’ And they began to have a wonderful time. Luke 15:20-24.

And there’s nothing like standing in a room full of women who are all probably as unsure about life sometimes as you are, but who are determined not to quit believing their God and what He says about their friends. 

This weekend I got to do that.

I got to see into the eyes of a hundred women who are all trying to make sense of friendship here, in the minivan driving years. Which for reasons I’ve spent nearly five years trying to unpack, seems much harder than during the middle school years. I’m guessing because there’s much so much more unspoken broken living in our leggings and lives and behind our front doors and Instagram profile pictures than we’re willing to admit.

But we keep showing up to try to find new ways to be seen. 

It’s worth seeing the women around you. Worth leaning into their lives. Worth working to understand them, to love them, to laugh with them. They will always surprise you with their downstairs stories. The ones you have to be really invited in to hear. I think this is what we call women’s ministry, yes? Not the decor or lights or music — but the being willing to minister to the women in your life. The ones at the end of the drive way waiting for the bus. The ones at book club or running late for soccer practice. We minister in a hundred ordinary ways across a lifetime of ordinary days.

It’s the gift of being willing to see beyond the borders of your own life. And look up, look out, at the women across from you. And ask yourself, “what can I do to show up for her today?” Women’s ministry isn’t complicated, limited to brands or the Bible Belt. It’s happening right now, in carpool lines and living rooms and at back doors down the street from you. Paying attention on purpose to the ways we can serve the women who show up in our everydays is the best way I know to stay connected to the body of Christ. To feel His heartbeat for His daughters we need to actually lean in to what their lives look like, feel like, sound like on the inside.

On Saturday I got to do that. Well, really it started on Friday night with a group of Friends who came early and stayed late to help with the set up. They hauled in farmhouse doors and baskets and lanterns and sunflowers. So many sunflowers. And they laughed and pulled out boxes of books and set up tables and seats and name tags and it took my breath away.

I guess that’s the thing about friendship — it’s the undeserved gift you really can never repay. And that’s what makes it so infinitely valuable.

Thank you to Ann Marie for capturing these beautiful photos of our one day Never Unfriended Live event. And thank you to my home church, Bethel, for hosting us in the most generous ways! These photos make my insides warmer than a mug of hot chocolate.

THANK YOU TEAM!

I could cry over my slice of pizza right now thinking about how many friends poured out time and creativity to make Never Unfriended Live possible — I LOVE THIS GANG SO MUCH!

Ruthie for being coordinator extraordinaire and keeping us all sane! Amy for bringing to life a creative vision I never could have even imagined and sharing her beautiful voice with us. Kelly for distressing and hauling farmhouse doors and lanterns from hours away. Asa for making music that filled the soul. Leyla for picking up pizza and all our spirits with your joy. Christina for snapping selfies for everyone and telling each woman how beautiful she looked. Neliza for tirelessly working, assembling, carrying, encouraging, hugging. Liz for championing, praying, serving, connecting and making sure no one felt left out. Sheila for bringing friends and service from far away. Kim and Ruthie for hosting like you were made for it. Ann Marie for lending us the gift of her talent and her camera. Alice and Judy for praying, interceding, cheerleading. Carla for welcoming and serving at registration, and Micah for packing all those gift bags! Dave and Asa and Mike and Stephanie for setting up and breaking down and making sure the tech ran like clockwork. And to my Peter and kiddos, thank you for always having my back, praying me through and driving all the miles of carpool when I can’t. Making you guys proud is my favorite. You all gave us the gift of service and it was a delight to be on your team!

Thank you Bethel for making it true for all of us this weekend – when you’re here, you’re home!

Want to recreate a similar experience in your church or in your living room with friends or in your sweatpants – click here to find out more about the (in)real life: FRIENDED Simulcast on October 14!

For this mom, afraid of messing up her daughter, Teri Lynne Underwood’s new book is a lifeline. Each prayer, each activity, each new way of seeing my girl with Jesus’ eyes filled me with gratitude and a hearty amen for this book! I’m so glad to welcome Teri Lynne to the blog today.

“Is this all?” she said, with a bit of huff.

“Um, yeah,” my response. (Which, if I’m honest, may have also been said with a bit of a huff.)

“Well, thanks,” she said, picking up the journal and earrings I had carefully chosen for her from the plethora of vendors at the women’s conference where I had spoken over the weekend.

Truth be told, I was not as much angry as I was hurt. The joy I had while selecting gifts for this girl I love had been zapped into oblivion with her three-word response. I wondered what she was expecting and what would have been enough.

Maybe you’ve had a similar experience with your daughter? (Please say you have and that I’m not alone!) In a world where an update or new version available for everything is always available, it’s no wonder our girls (and maybe their mommas too) are rarely satisfied.

We want a bigger house, a better job, or the latest Evy’s Tree hoodie (or maybe that last one is just me). As my husband often says, “Our wanters aren’t broken.”

And this wanting isn’t something that arrived with the twenty-first century.

From that moment in the Garden when Eve realized the fruit was “good for food and delightful to look at” (Genesis 3:6), we’ve all found ourselves guided by our wants, often far more frequently than we’d care others know.

But here’s the thing—we were created to want more. Fashioning us in His image, God left us with a space only He could fill. The writer of Ecclesiastes said it this way, “He has also put eternity in their hearts” (Ecclesiastes 3:11).

While I can fathom the full meaning of that verse, I know it’s true. I see it in my life, in my daughter’s life, and in the lives of everyone else I know. There is a longing inside us for something beyond what we can see and experience in this life.

As a mom, how do I guide my daughter to understand this truth: we were made for more and the more we were made for is found only in Christ. My seventeen-plus years of raising a girl have shown me the only way for her (or any of us) to find the more we’re after is to believe what God has said is true.

One of our greatest intentions as parents must be helping our children believe, even when they don’t understand, that they are made in the image of God. It’s a game changer! Why?
Because believing what God says about us is one of the most powerful ways we reject the lies of the world around us and walk in the abundant life Christ has promised.

This isn’t a one and done discussion, it’s an ongoing conversation. We remind them they are precious and beloved, set apart, and called to new life in Christ. And as we do, we guide them to the truth that will enable them to reject the world’s notions of identity and value found in numbers of Instagram likes, Twitter follows, and SnapChat streaks.

And the most honest way we can point them to Jesus as the more they’re after is by our example of focusing on Him ourselves.

Because deep inside each of us, we know this life can’t be all there is— the “more” our girls long to find and experience is only found in relationship with Him.

Praying for our girls to know their identity in Christ is just one of the important topics covered in Teri Lynne Underwood’s new book, Praying for Girls: Asking God for the Things They Need Most. Teri Lynne is a pastor’s wife, ministry speaker, and Bible teacher. As the founder of PrayersforGirls.com, Teri Lynne is a cheerleader for girl moms and the author of Praying for Girls: Asking God for the Things They Need Most. She is a trusted guide for girl moms as we navigate this journey and I’m so grateful for her ministry.

But I know lots of women who worry about being unfriended. Or misunderstood. Or hurt or judged or left out or taken for granted by their friends. I’m one of them.

So they stop trying. They stop risking. They stop starting over. Because they’ve stopped believing there’ll be a seat saved for them at the table. At the book club. At the PTA meeting, the Bible Study, the office break room, the retreat, the lunch date, the church pew, or the living room sofa of the woman who used to be their best friend.

That’s what my first ever Bible Study is about.

We Saved You a Seat is about not giving up on friendship. Even when we’re frustrated by it. Even when we’re tired of it, confused by it, or disappointed in it.

This Bible Study is a chance to change that.

This is a practical guide to finding and keeping lasting friendships.

This is believing that there really is a seat saved for you at the table. And it’s also about becoming the kind of women who will always save a seat for the women around them.

Together we will unpack what that kind of friendship takes — seven practical ways to take Jesus up on His invitation to love other people. To be friends who go first, who make the first move, and sometimes the hundredth move of starting over. This is the meat and potatoes of life — figuring out how to get along with the people we love as well as the ones who rub us the wrong way. This is the whole shebang. Explored in seven simple steps.

Let’s do this together.

Join in on your own, as a group of women, a group of teen girls, a woman mentoring the special teen girl in your life, or a woman leading a group of teens! Whatever model works best for you. All you need is the right Bible study book and you’ll get to watch the entire video teaching free of charge*!

ALL THE DETAILS:

– The We Saved You A Seat online Bible study will be seven weeks long.
– We’ll begin studying on August 3 and there will be a new video session on the LifeWay women’s blog each Thursday morning at 5am CT.
– If you are a woman, order this Bible study book.
– If you are a teen girl (ages 12-18), order this Bible study book.

TO PARTICIPATE:

1. Click this link and fill out the form (just your email address!) to sign up.
2. You will receive a welcome email from churchresources@email1.lifeway.com if you want to add them to your contacts.
3. Weekly emails will begin August 3. The emails are simply reminders to watch the video for free on the LifeWay Women’s blog and participate in the comments.
4. You’ll need to grab a copy of the We Saved You a Seat Bible study book for WOMEN or TEEN GIRLS.

Our hope for the online Bible studies is not that they’ll replace community in real life. Grab a friend or two or ten and do this study together, using the online videos as a fun addition to your study! If you are studying alone, that’s okay! We are so glad you’re here and hope you find friends and fellowship as we learn together.

Teen girls, we are so excited to have you here! Your book is basically the same as the women’s book, except it’s been edited to speak directly to where you are right now. One difference to note—the teen book does not have video session viewer guides like the women’s book does. But you can still watch the videos each week. We’ll ask the same questions of you on the blog, and we’d love to hear your perspective!

If you are a woman doing this study with teen girls (your daughter, or niece, or young girls at church), we recommend you get the Bible study book for women while they get the Bible study book for teens. You’ll be able to follow along together just fine.

*A note about the videos: For We Saved You a Seat, we will be offering the entire Bible study videos online for free for a limited time. Videos will remain up until October 1, 2017, allowing some breathing room for those who join in late or miss a couple of weeks. After that time you can purchase or rent the video sessions here.

Ready to join in? Enter your email address over here and click “Sign Up.” It’s that easy!

So amazed and thrilled and surprised and honored to get to do this with you all!
Can’t wait till August 3rd!

Love,
Lisa-Jo (your accidental Bible Study writer)

But life was so busy and so loud with the book launch and travel and I know you all have full plates and calendars and I wanted a chance to let everyone catch their breath.

And maybe go to Target. For flip flops and the usual 25 other things you didn’t plan on buying.

And then maybe we needed some pool days and time spent vegging in front of Netflix. Before anyone asked anything of us. Other than ordering take out. Am I right? At least, that’s how summer started for me.

But I’ve caught my breath, caught a plane (several planes) home to South Africa. And now there’s something that I think it’s finally the right time to share with you.

Want to come and do a Bible Study with me this fall?

Because it turns out I wrote one. And believe me that NO ONE is more shocked about this than me. But writing Never Unfriended was just the beginning of getting to the heart of what lurks under all the conversations and all the worries we women have about friendship. About being left out or hurt or worried about what she thinks about us.

I don’t know about you but I often feel like there’s a teenage girl living inside my minivan driving body. And we share the same insecurities.

So this Bible study was written for moms AND their daughters!

WE SAVED YOU A SEAT: FINDING AND KEEPING LASTING FRIENDSHIPS

The Bible Study that isn’t afraid to go there!

Together we will unpack what friendship takes — seven practical ways to take Jesus up on His invitation to love other people. To be friends who go first, who make the first move, and sometimes the hundredth move of starting over. This is the meat and potatoes of life — figuring out how to get along with the people we love as well as the ones who rub us the wrong way. This is the whole shebang. Explored in seven simple steps.

Let’s do this with our daughters. Let’s do this FOR our daughters! Or let’s do it just for ourselves. Here’s how:

• If you are a woman, this is the Bible study book for you. And these are the discussion videos you can download. (My best friend literally binge watched them, they’re that fun. Think 5 girlfriends getting very REAL about friendship)
• If you are a teen girl (ages 12-18), this is the Bible study book for you. No video sessions to worry about.
• If you plan to lead a Bible Study this is the Leader’s Kit (with videos) for you.

FREE GIFT: Just click here to sign up to receive the first week of the study, including the first video discussion, for free!

BIG NEWS: Then watch for another announcement next week. We have big news about this Bible Study. Stay tuned!

Because I don’t know anyone who doesn’t want friends.

But I know lots of women who worry about being unfriended. Or misunderstood. Or hurt or judged or left out or taken for granted by their friends. I’m one of them.

So they stop trying. They stop risking. They stop starting over. Because they’ve stopped believing there’ll be a seat saved for them at the table. At the book club. At the PTA meeting, the Bible Study, the office break room, the retreat, the lunch date, the church pew, or the living room sofa of the woman who used to be their best friend.

That’s what this Bible Study is about.

Because we know that change comes through letting Scripture soak into our bones.

We Saved You a Seat is about not giving up on friendship. Even when we’re frustrated by it. Even when we’re tired of it, confused by it, or disappointed in it.

This Bible Study is a chance to change that.

Just click here to sign up to receive the first week of the study, including the first video discussion, for free!

My dad turns 70 this month. And so our family will make the trek from Baltimore to Johannesburg via Detroit and Amsterdam. To be back with these people. These people who were my first home.

We’re ordering gifts and getting new suitcases and planning all the family we want to see. But deep down, deep down I’m wasting my anticipation because it’s drowning in a self-conscious worry I wish I could turn off. Turn off like the dripping faucet it is.

Here’s the thing – this time last summer I was at the healthiest, fittest weight I’ve been in years. Then I faced some crushing book deadlines and I mainlined candy corn, cotton candy and other assorted forms of sugar to push myself through.

These are things a 40-year-old body does not recover from quickly. Or even slowly. It recovers verrryyyyy slowly. No matter that I signed up for a gym and am actually going several times a week. No matter that I’m cutting out the late night binging on French bread and brie cheese and Cheetos. No matter than I’m really really trying, the scale has been depressingly stubborn every morning that I step onto it and feel my heart sink with each pound I haven’t lost yet.

And my days are filled with self-beratement about my lack of discipline and why can’t I survive on less calories and why do I love food so much.

I’ve never had an unhealthy relationship with food or my body. I’ve loved both. Generously.

But somehow in the last few months that scale has become an angry voice in my ear. A voice that despises my thighs and my belly and speaks ruthless criticism at both. And I have listened. And tried really hard to obey.

And it’s sucked the life and marrow out of this lifetime trip home.

Today I woke up and decided I was tired of it.

I was on the phone with my dad and I told him about it. I told him we’re coming home chubbier than we would have liked and asked him to just take us as we are. My dad. My dad who is turning 70 and is fantastically health-conscious and runs 5 miles and is raising kids the same age as mine and who probably never binge ate anything in his life.

My dad. Man, I could feel the love unfurling across the miles of phone lines and into my ear – he said, we’ll love you just the way you are and we hope you’ll let us add a few more pounds on of all the foods you love here for good measure.

Listen, this isn’t about food or weight. Really. It’s about love. It’s about believing you are unconditionally loved. No it’s more than that. It’s about KNOWING you are unconditionally loved.

Do you know what that means? Let me spell it out for you the way I had to spell it out for myself:

Unconditional love = you are loved no matter what.

No matter what the scale says or your book review says or your performance report says or your passive aggressive relationship says or your bathing suit says or the voice in your head says.

You are loved beyond pounds or fit or style or perfection.

You are loved because YOU ARE.

Period. End of story.

You are loved because you were created by a God who IS love.

You are loved because it’s the DNA of the stuff you were made out of.

You are loved because it’s the blood that runs in your veins and the sway of your hips, and yes even the rub of your upper thighs against each other — love, love, love, left, right, swish, swish, love love love. Even in the sticky sweat of summer in places you wish weren’t sweating.

You are loved because it’s what pumps in your veins like a drumbeat reminder that this is your name and there is no other name than love, love, love.

Somehow between the scale and my favorite jeans that don’t fit this summer I forgot that.

My daughter was stroking my belly this morning and whispered into its curves – “I love this belly.”

And my dad said the same thing using different words on the phone this morning.

And my husband said it when he called to say he missed me while he’s traveling this week.

This throbbing harmony of how loved we are. If only we will listen. If only we will stop listening to our measuring sticks and scales and start listening to our promises.

For God himself has said, “I will never fail you or abandon you.”

But there are some voices that WE need to leave.

Don’t get me wrong, I will continue on this journey to be healthy for my kids and for the calling God has entrusted to me. I will practice curbing my sugar cravings and leaning into better choices in my fridge and in my heart.

But at the same time I will leave behind the voices that are robbing me of the joy of that journey.

And I will practice being loved, more than I practice being careful what I eat.

And next week I will fly home to my South African people and I will revel in rusks and pancakes and boerewors and pap and koeksisters and a whole host of foods that taste like home. And I will not consult the scale for its opinion.

I will look into the eyes of my family and let them have the last word.

Because I already know what my Father has said:

“I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.”

And before I step onto a scale I will repeat those words out loud and let them be the weight that defines me.

PS: I’m not asking for diet suggestions or work out plans by writing this post. I’m just asking you to look at yourself in the mirror or on the scale and hear a voice that’s weightier than your weight. A voice that literally does love you — just the way you are. Amen?

There will be days you will be so tired it’s too hard to make the bed. Just getting out of it will have to be enough.

There will be days you will wonder why no one told you that they loved you today.

There will be days when you’ll step over that pile of Barbie clothes and plastic figurines and scrumpled up art projects and you’ll think to yourself, “I should really get around to tidying that up.” But you won’t.

There will be so much that you get wrong.

You will want to go back to the beginning to try and make sense of it all but you won’t be able to. Because there’s too much new already happening again today.

It’s like a rushing river of ordinary that roars by you through your living room and around the corner from that little white house that you rented for five years that felt like forever.

Only it isn’t.

Nothing is forever when you are on the timeline of children. Everything is right now. And before you know it, everything is yesterday.

And everything gets better.

Tomorrow is always a mystery.

A shifting changing mystery that you’re scared of and then, before you know it, tomorrow is yesterday and your baby is turning eleven.

There is so much you will get wrong.

It’s OK to just accept that at the beginning. Or better yet, in the middle. It’s OK to just accept all the many times you’re going to need to start over.

I lay down next to my nearly eleven-year-old last night and the song that came on the radio was the same one I was singing when we stood in church one cold Sunday night in South Africa when I was six months pregnant with him.

And there I was again last night singing the words over him, his arms wrapped around me. My gangly, long-limbed baby who isn’t a baby anymore.

I made all the mistakes.

I tried to keep to the feeding schedule the books told me to and he was never interested.

I quit nursing too early; I started formula too soon. Depending on which book you consult.

I loved him but I missed sleeping.

I was confused and lonely by motherhood.

I loved all of it and I wanted to go back to the part of my life when I could read a book uninterrupted.

That part has come back around now. I’m not sure why it surprises me so much. But it does.

I never expected to miss him while I was enjoying peace and quiet in my own room. So I close my laptop and sneak into his room and climb into the twin beds he and his brother have pushed together. I pet their backs and tell them stories of that old song that showed up eleven years ago and is still playing on the radio tonight.

You don’t know what you don’t know when you’re a new mom.

And then it turns out you don’t know a whole host of new things when you’re a ten year old mom.

What I know is that it’s OK to make mistakes. It’s important to keep learning. And that the kids love hearing about what the journey has been like. Because they don’t remember most of it. They love when I fill in the gaps.

They love hearing all of it.

Even the things I thought I got wrong. Now I tell those stories and they make sympathetic noises and pat my back and look, it’s all starting over again. Even the parts I thought we were done living. I’m reliving them through their fascinated eyes and there is redemption in the way they receive them like a gift.

A gift I’ve been carrying with me all that time I was sure I was doing it wrong, that I’d never sleep and that all I wanted was to get through potty training.

We lie in bed together and I know it’s going to be OK. Even the stuff that doesn’t feel OK. It’s going to be OK.

I didn’t know this moment would be waiting for me.

When I was tired and confused and he was only 2 months old I didn’t know.

That there were gifts so tender and beautiful waiting in tomorrow.

But I know now.

So I’m better at stepping over the mess of today because who knows what kind of beauty it will show up as tomorrow.

We so hope you’re already signed up to join us. If not, it’s never too late — just click over here to jump in!

Since this is week one, we figured you might need some notes on how this is going to work and what to expect. Here’s a step by step guide to make sure you don’t miss a thing:

Step 1: Make sure you have registered for the Book Club.

Step 2: Make sure you have joined the Book Club Facebook Group. The link will be in your registration confirmation email. This is where everything is being hosted —  from tonight’s video to chats and conversations during the week.

Step 3: For tonight, we’ll be talking our way through the Introduction of Never Unfriended — so that’s the good stuff you’ll want to have read. Easy to catch up if you haven’t started yet!

Step 4: Put on your comfy sweatpants, grab some dessert and tune into the Facebook group at 9pm ET/6pm PT for our LIVE book club meeting with tonight’s sweatpants friend, Ann Voskamp. The video will last about 30-45 minutes in total and we would love for you to be there live to take part in the commenting and conversation.

Step 5: Meet Ann – An instant friend since we met seven years ago in the Dallas airport en route to Guatemala with Compassion International. There is pretty much nothing Ann doesn’t know about me. From ugly cry to all the grossest and most vulnerable parts of my heart to my highest highs, Ann has seen it all and loved me through it all. She is a farmer’s wife, mom to seven, and is my heart Jonathan friend. I know that we’ll still be friends when we’re old and gray and in rocking chairs out on her farm’s front porch. I will likely have no teeth left but since she’s got better dental luck than me, she will still have more than just gums to offer the world. And we’re going to kick off the study by unpacking a new definition of friendship.

If for some reason you can’t watch live tonight or you aren’t on Facebook – never fear! We’ll have a replay of the video available by Thursday both in the Facebook group and on youtube and will send out the links to you in an email.

That’s it! Nothing complicated, just a bunch of amazing women in comfy sweatpants who all want to learn to do this friendship thing better – together.

(And who are really really goofy at heart :)

{EPIC PHOTO BOMB BY Kristen Strong.}

See you tonight inside the Facebook group!

When two little kids next to you EXPLODE into whoops and hollers of “Grandma!! GRANDMA!!” when their grandma walks into the front door and when they THROW themselves on her with the uncensored love of toddlers you start to cry.

Because this is the thing — all of life on this planet is about relationships. Our relationships with Jesus and our relationships with the other people He’s created.

In His final prayer, His heartfelt conversation with His Father God on the night before He would die, Jesus testified to His own faithfulness as a friend,

While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. (John 17:12)

This is the God who has pursued you since before time across galaxies and DNA and broken families and past hurts and who never, never, never considers you a waste of time.

This is the God who is not shocked by your failures, your doubts, or your choices.

This is the God who does not keep a record of your wrongs.

This is the God who isn’t keeping score, keeping tabs, keeping you down.

This is a God who made time stand still on a broken hill on Calvary so that He could reach through the past into your future and grab you by the heart and the hand and the soul and rescue you.

There is a God who believes that you are worth dying for.

Do you believe that?

If you’ve never met Jesus before we’d love to introduce you to Him.

He is the most faithful friend. And He would die before He would ever unfriend you.

If you’re just meeting Him for the first time or getting re-acquainted with Him after a long while, we’d love to pray with you. Just leave a comment below or keep reading over here to learn more about what it means to be friends with Jesus.

We pray this book might be a small reminder of the massive love your God has for you.

He is the only one who can live up to the promise to Never Unfriend you. It’s worth taking Him up on it.

**Photo credit and beautiful hand lettering by Elizabeth Sands Wise**