Unfriended: A Book Review

I love to read.  Sometimes my eyes are bigger than my stomach and I get books that sit on my nightstand for weeks, months, even years before I open them.  I'm fickle and there's really not a rhyme or reason to why I read what I do and when I read it.  I've always just chalked it up to "When I read it, it will be the perfect time."

That's how this book was.  I've had it for a little while.  I bought it on a whim and then figured it would be one of those cheesy "Jesus is your best friend" kind of books. (and yes, I DO believe Jesus is my best friend, but I don't want to read a couple of hundred pages beating that into my head).

This book was a delightful surprise!  It took me a few weeks to read because I wanted to let the words sink in.  So many practical things, so many challenging things and so many hopeful things are packed into this little nugget.  The author wrote also wrote a Bible study called "We Saved You a Seat" that has videos that will be free to watch starting Aug 3rd.  I can't wait to dive into that as well and am praying I can do it with a few people.

I underlined a lot in this book.  Here are the things that hit me the most:

"Being willing to be a neighbor in the heart sense of the word is being willing to connect with the people who God puts in our path...How can I BE a friend?"

"We might have defined friendship our whole lives by what others do to us, but in the end it's what we do for others that will define us as friends or not."

"At the end of the day, we get to choose who will have the final say in our lives and our relationships: fear or love."

"God didnt come to make bad people good.  He came to make dead people alive."

"Forgiveness is making peace with the past so that there is opportunity for relationship in the future.  Not necessarily with the same people who've scarred us."

"There's always room for one more friend and room to know each other more.  Better.  Deeper. Uglier. Weirdere. Funnier.  For better or worse, female friendships take courage to start and courage to maintain."

"The cardinal rule of friendship:  You have to be willing to go first."

"In the beginning, God made us in His image.  It's the only image we're supposed to fit."

"Loving people means loving them the way they need to be loved, not the way you like being loved."

"Anyone is good company at a cocktail party.  But love is born when we misunderstand one another and make it right...If it is real, friendship is usually untidy."

"Latching onto a friend with the hope that they will give us God-sized affirmation will always disappoint...God and only God can give us the words and the lives that fill us up."

"Jesus is never tired of me always needing Him.  Instead, He is deighted by how desperately I need His validation and He never, ever withholds it from me.  Or from you."

"There is no 'done' when it coes to sacrificial love.  There is only more."

"Stop keeping score--who called who last, and who owes an email or a play date or a lunch date--and start initiating.  Friendship isn't something we passively receive.  Friendship is something we actively do.  It's a gift we offer for free, not a demand we make with a stamping foot."

"The shortest distance between strangers and friends is a shared story about our broken places."

"Depression lies and tells you that it's not worth fighting and that you're better off alone."

"It may seem like He's asleep in the boat, but it's not because He doesn't care.  It's because He's so deeply confident the Father is in control."

"No matter how much you clean or remodel or move or rebuild, hospitality will always be more a matter of the heart than the architecture.  And your guests will only feel as comfortable in your house as you feel in your own skin."

"Missing out on community is a kind of dying."

"To become real, friendship more often requires becoming comfortable with the snapshots of life often taken at an unflattering angle."

 "And don't let the fear of getting it wrong stop you.  We all get it wrong."

"Blessings are not for hoarding, they're for forwarding.  Because that is how we reflect God's gory back to Him."

"The best antidote to jealousy is choosing instead to encourage."

"Everyone is on the outside of something.  But that is only half the story.  We are all, each of us, also on the inside of something--often without even realizing it."

"Forget the hundreds you wish would come, the cool or the trending you want to impress; feed the hungry who are already there.  Feed them your best."

"The one seat I need to focus on is the one right next to me.  Not the one across the room or the aisle or even the other end of the table."

"The words we say to ourselves matter because the God who is The Word says we matter.  And it's time we start believing Him."