His Friends: No Longer Servants

I sat on the couch in the corner of the living room, trying to look normal while building a spreadsheet to figure out how much of our credit card bill we could pay. I didn't even understand how we had spent so much in the first place. God had promised me peace, but all I felt was the weight of our bills and a rattling anxiety.

When I studied abroad in England for six months, I wanted to make friends. I know we usually avoid investing in someone when they've already got a plane ticket home. But to my surprise, two students immediately welcomed me into their pre-existing friendship. They answered innumerable questions about the cultural differences, took me to their favorite places to eat, and we even went punting on a nice summer afternoon. What started as kindness to a stranger turned into friendships we still value today.

A user on Reddit asked, "What's something you've never told anyone, but can tell a bunch of strangers on Reddit?" 1,600 upvotes were given to this response: "That even though I am surrounded by friends, I suffer from an extreme sensation of loneliness that is killing me day after day. I have always felt like a stranger to my friends and family and have no idea how to feel normal." We blame our phones and suburban sprawl, but the same agony has plagued us for millennia.

As I turned from East Parkway onto Union Avenue in Memphis, I asked the student going to the service project with me how his week was going. He shared, "It's pretty stressful. I have two tests tomorrow, and a paper due at the end of the week." I asked, "So, why are you spending your evening with me?" He shrugged his shoulders and said, "Because I promised to help you. I can't go back on my word." For an ambitious, driven student, I knew he felt the cost.

At the summer conference, the food was passable, and the bunk beds were hard. But whether the staff were stacking chairs or playing basketball, I'd never seen people this different from each other enjoy being together so much. I wanted to be like them, so I decided to join them. For the next ten years, I worked as a campus minister.