TRANSCRIPT Episode 8: Friendship – being needy & needed

Leah Sax:
Hello and welcome to episode eight of Delight Podcast, I’m Leah Sax and this is Adam Curtis.

Adam Curtis:
Hey, there.

Leah Sax:
Today, our guest is Sara Snow and our topic is friendship. Sara is married to Pete, who pastors a church in North London, St Paul’s Harringay, and they have three young children together. So she’s a busy lady. We’ll be hearing Sara’s testimony, how she came to love the Lord, and then we’ll be digging deep into the topic of Christian friendship.

Adam Curtis:
I’m excited.

Leah Sax:
So, yes, indeed, today we welcome the lovely Sara Snow to Delight Podcast now, Sara, would you mind telling our fabulous listeners how you and I know each other?

Sara Snow:
Hello. Yes. Well, Leah and I must have met over probably a water table or a sand pit or something when we were about four years old in a reception class room at our primary school in Barnet, north London. Yeah, we met each other, became good friends, then when we were four, went to brownies together. Did the whole of primary school together and secondary school. So we have known each other basically forever.

Leah Sax:
Yes. So the Delight Podcast episode on Friendship, I’ve managed to get my oldest and loveliest friend to come and chat with us.

Sara Snow:
Likewise Leah like likewise.

Leah Sax:
And it’s just such a privilege that my oldest friend is also a believing friend, somebody who’s love the Lord who’s walked all of life with me. And I’m just so thankful. I resist calling you by our childhood nicknames, though.

Adam Curtis:
What was your what was it? Come on, spill the beans.

Leah Sax:
Well, Sara was yo yo and I was plum plum.

Sara Snow:
I was Yohannes so she used to call me Yo Yo, and Leah was plum plum for no reason whatsoever.

Leah Sax:
I have no idea why, because I think purple was my favourite colour. So plum plum.

Sara Snow:
Oh yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, yeah.

Leah Sax:
So we’ve literally walked all of life together. But back to back on topic, sorry. Could you let us know how did you come to faith?

Sara Snow:
Well, I grew up in a family where my extended family, many of them were either missionaries or vicars or pastors. And so I grew up in a family where Christianity was very normal. And I actually thought because all my uncles and lots of my cousins were vicars, I thought that all boys grew up to be vicars. So I remember when I was about six saying, when I grow up, I want to marry a vicar because that’s what I just thought everybody did. And funnily enough, it tickles me that that has actually happened. But I am. Yeah, basically, it was. It was always in our family and I grew up going to church. I think I became a Christian when I was six. Actually, I remember a really specific time in my junior church when I invited the Lord Jesus into my heart and we prayed this prayer. And I remember just thinking, this is a really significant moment. I actually remember after that starting a Bible study for my friends because I remember it was sort of it. It must have been told to us, You know, you’re a Christian now. Make sure you tell you, tell people, tell your friends. And so I invite I started this Bible study at home and Leah came along. I don’t know if you remember that.

Leah Sax:
I don’t remember that

Sara Snow:
You were that you were that with one other friend of ours

Leah Sax:
I can suspect which friend it was.

Sara Snow:
And I didn’t think it lasted very long, but we went through my Bible notes and you know, I asked the other one because Leah was already a Christian. We’re asking the other one. So do you believe in God now? But anyway, anyway, I digress. I’m completely reminiscing. I have been sort of very gradually and very slowly grown, I guess, as a Christian and the Lord has graciously kept me all these years and I’m still learning and growing loads day by day.

Leah Sax:
Hmm. And as you were going through those teenage years going off to uni, were there moments of growth or a challenge where you kind of had to dig deeper into your faith?

Sara Snow:
I think that’s happened many times. Yep, over the years, I think I have been challenged by friends, actually by people who have just asked me quite difficult questions at times, you know, challenging me on the way that I was living, which at the time I was very taken aback by, but actually helped me to make a few wise decisions, I guess, and think about how I was living. There were also times, I think, when when people really invested in me, I did a sort of gap year after university and worked with the Christian organisation part of their programme. It was focussing on discipleship and I was meeting up with somebody every week reading the Bible with them, praying with them. And and that to me, was was completely new and kind of weird but wonderful. And and actually that was that was really important for me to see that, oh yes, we can apply the Bible to our day to day lives, and this stuff really makes a difference in how we live day to day. It’s not just for the end time, it’s not just for where I’m going, it’s for now too.

Leah Sax:
Sara, it’s been great to hear how in discipling others, you yourself were being discipled, learning how to live every day, day by day in God’s word. Have there perhaps been any moments, perhaps more recently, where you’ve really seen God at work in your life?

Sara Snow:
Yeah, absolutely. Yes. I mean, last year, the yeah, the last couple of years have been very difficult for all of us with COVID and lockdowns and and it was really hard for us personally as. Well, we have three children who are now seven, six and three just at the beginning of the first lockdown in 2020. I found out I was pregnant and with our fourth child, and when we went to the 12 week scan, we discovered that actually there were significant problems and he was diagnosed with the syndrome that was deemed incompatible with life. We carried this baby through to his birth in October. He was born and lived with us for six weeks and died in the December. And. That was by far the hardest thing I’ve ever had to deal with in many ways and and yet at the beginning, when I found when I found out, I thought, I can’t really deal with this, this is too much. This is too hard. For the first time, perhaps I was even doubting some of the promises of God’s word, which, you know, things like there’s a verse in Psalm 55:22 that says, Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you. And I really struggled to believe that that was true. But. Sure enough. Day by day, as we cast our cares, as we cried, as we shouted, as we screamed and fell and just shook with all the emotion that there was, I. I realised that he he that was true. He was sustaining us day by day and he was carrying us through. And. There was a very it was a very supernatural element too. I mean, Philippians talks about the peace that passes all understanding and that for the first time, I really got that. You know, it didn’t make any sense that I felt throughout that time a sense of peace and a sense of God’s closeness and realness and nearness to me. And yet he did give me that peace that was extraordinary in such a gift.

Leah Sax:
And Sara, as someone who who from a distance watched you walk through that and was very humbly encouraged by the way you lived that life out. I really love how you and Pete have shared in the past about the witness that this is the life Little Monty was for the Lord and the conversations that brought about. Would you mind sharing a bit of that story with us?

Sara Snow:
It was really beautiful to see actually the amount of people that were coming in that came into our lives as a result of Monty, our baby, and we were dealing with health professionals every single day. And this was during the time when nobody was allowed to see anybody. So this was during COVID and lockdown and and yet we were having these, these health professionals coming in every day and each of them were just struck by his little life, struck by the fact that he was here, that we’d chosen to keep him and that week that his life was valuable and we wanted him to to be here. We weren’t going to make any decisions, I guess, about his life and death and they were moved by him. You know, obviously, as his parents, we loved him to bits and we he was a precious part of our family. He was our son and our child. And so we we loved him dearly. But it was interesting to see how other people just have this sort of connexion with him and just loved holding him and loved coming to visit him. And they would fight over coming to visit him because because he was special, because you know, someone who’s or having a syndrome which is seen to be, you know, almost sort of writes off someone’s life actually to see them here in a bit and hold them in a sitting room and just be able to feed them and was very, very special and seeing, yes, lots of people ask questions about Christianity, about our faith and wanted to know, wanted to know more about that. So yeah, that was. That was it, that was a joy, a joy.

Leah Sax:
Sara, thank you so much for sharing that, and I just want to say again that I’ve just been personally so encouraged by the way that you and Pete have loved the Lord so faithfully during this time. So thank you for sharing that. I’m also thankful for the life of Monty in the way that God used that life for his glory and for the testament that is to you and the witness that you have been. Sara, here’s a big question. Perhaps. But a really helpful one, I think what’s the biggest thing you’ve learnt about God’s character during this time

Sara Snow:
I’d say that the how good how good God is? It was really striking to me how good he is and how kind. How tender and loving and gentle, so this idea of being a good shepherd was really precious to us. We read Psalm 23, which is all about God being a shepherd to Monty many times over his short life, and it impacted me how he is tender to his sheep, who, well, sheep are silly. They don’t do what they’re supposed to do in there, and they don’t. They’re not very clever animals, but we and and we are like that. But yeah, God is so kind and and draws close to us, draws close to the brokenhearted that there’s another verse in the Psalms that says, you know, God, he is close to the brokenhearted and I. And I felt that more than ever, I’ve never known such nearness from God. It’s a strange thing to say, but in a way I wouldn’t have. I wouldn’t change the last year at all, actually, because that has been so worth it. The fact that God has drawn so close to me and I’ve known him to be the best thing and the only thing that I need. So actually, I wouldn’t want it any different.

Leah Sax:
Sara, it’s humbling and frankly incredible that you go through this and you come out saying that God is good and kind and gentle and tender and loving, and that you wouldn’t change it. That’s such glory you’re giving to God and. It leaves me frankly speechless, which is not the most helpful thing for a podcast, but I love that that’s how your heart is. And I love that this is how God has kept you close and I’m just so thankful for you, my dear lovely friend Sara.

Leah Sax:
We’d love for you to check out our website at DelightPodcast.com. There you can find transcripts of each episode, more detailed show notes and Adams fairly interesting and giving it to him Blogs including the new One This Week looking more into friendship. We’d love for you to rate subscribe and share and if you wish. Review Delight Podcast because it really does make such a big difference and helps others find us more easily. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook and Twitter. Just search Delight Podcast. Now back to Adam and Sara as we dig into friendship.

Adam Curtis:
Thank you, Sara, for sharing about your life and how good has been at work in it and through it. Now we’re going to move on to our topic of the day and friendship. Now we live in quite an individualistic, materialistic world and it can be quite common that we exist on our own. Our home is our castle. We don’t need other people, and this sort of attitude can sort of seep into church life as well. So. And sometimes people can say, I don’t need other people to have a relationship with God. If someone said that phrase to you, I don’t need other people to have a relationship with God. What would be your response?

Sara Snow:
I think you could say, yes, that’s true, and it’s false. So yes, we don’t need other people in order to be saved. No, but our relationship with God isn’t going to last very long If we don’t have other people alongside us in doing that, I don’t think God is an intensely personal God. Just the fact that he is trinity in himself. So he is father, son and holy spirit. He is a personal God in relationship with himself, first and foremost. And then he’s created us to be in his image, to be personable, personal too, to be personable and relational to be in relationship with other people. So I think it’s the way that we’ve been created. It’s the way that God has designed us to be. We’re not meant to be alone. We know that loneliness is a is a true source of true suffering, isn’t it? If you’re if you’re lonely, it’s it’s a it’s a painful place to be. And it doesn’t matter if we’re extroverts or introverts, you know, we might be extremely introverted and find other people really exhausting. But if we are lonely, we don’t have friends, we don’t have company with others, then we are suffering. God is designed to be alongside other people, even when he makes when he makes us in Genesis, it doesn’t he say, you know, it is not good for the man to be alone and it’s not good for us to be alone. We we do need others.

Adam Curtis:
Could you give us some examples of lack of times where you look back like, Oh, I’m so glad that person was there?

Sara Snow:
I mean, many times I think in in the last year, it’s been really interesting because with COVID, of course, we couldn’t see each other. We couldn’t be in each other’s company and have hugs. And yet I personally was dealing with the hardest thing I’ve ever had to go through. And so friendship was interesting. But you know, it showed me it could, It could be different to how I perhaps have experienced it before. It doesn’t have to be, you know, seeing somebody face to face, but just that sense of relationship, that sense of talking together, whether that was on the phone or or even just in messages, you know, WhatsApp and text messages that sense of sharing life with each other. How are you doing today? Well, today really sucks. Or, you know, one friend just messaged me every single day without fail for a year, not even necessarily wanting an answer, but just to say This is what I’m thinking for you. This is what I’m praying for you today. And that was extraordinary. You know that I haven’t seen her for a long, long time, but she was there walking with me through through a really hard time. We need those, I needed those people in my life and I needed those friendships and those people just to care for me and to be there with me and to talk to,

Adam Curtis:
Yeah, just pick up on something you said earlier. It’s actually a part of our yeah, I’ll make up. It’s part of how we’ve been designed to be. If we’re made in the image of a triune God who is father, son and Holy Spirit, then actually it is natural for me to need other people or other people to need me. What is the nature of Christian friendship like its Christian friendship, just like any old friendship? What is the nature of Christian friendship?

Sara Snow:
I think what you just said, actually, Adam, was really how I would describe it, that sort of being needy and being needed, that sense that we are both of those things in our friendships. We are not the come to me, and I will counsel you and fix you and help you only. Nor are we only I need your time. I need your advice. I need your help, your love your care for me. Only if that makes sense. We are both of those things. We are needed and we are needy.

Adam Curtis:
Oh, that is phenomenally helpful. I’ve never heard that phrase. And yet immediately that rings true. You’re right, and I get a professional sense when people come to me, they they need my help and professionally, I have to help them. But if that’s actually happening in a friendship, it’s not a healthy friendship.

Sara Snow:
Exactly. Yes, exactly. It’s a mutuality, isn’t it? That sense of we are equals in a friendship. There’s no hierarchy, or at least I don’t think there should be. And I think also with Christians, there is a union with somebody who is a Christian because if they are trusting in Christ. And you are trusting in Christ there is a oneness with them. I can meet a Christian for the first time and instantly call them a brother or a sister because they have a union in Christ, because we share that together, we are family together. That’s really precious. Knowing that we are in the same family.

Adam Curtis:
Yeah, and it’s that that knowledge that we’re in the same family at the beginning, it sort of starts as like an identity. Ok, you’re my brother, you’re my sister. But then that identity then starts to shape us as we push further into it. As I start to treat these people like my brothers and my sisters and my family and let them treat me in the same way as I start to become a bit more needy around them.

Sara Snow:
Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Adam Curtis:
Yeah, because I do think that it’s like a big moment in friendship when the moment when we can actually say, I need your help.

Sara Snow:
That’s humbling, isn’t it? It is a really humbling place to be. We’re not very good at that. Sometimes as Brits, I think we can be quite self-sufficient, but we do need we need people. Definitely, we need each other

Leah Sax:
Because just just thinking about that a bit further. If someone says, I have loads of friends already, I don’t need any more friends. I don’t need any more Christian friends. We’ve talked a little bit about how being united in Christ is a great reason for Christian friendship. Are there any other reasons that you would say actually, friends in, say, church are really valuable or a different even?

Sara Snow:
Well, I think the attitude of I don’t need is perhaps the issue here because, yeah, we don’t go to church to serve ourselves. It’s not about what we can get out of it and what we can achieve or receive. We want to we want to be able to serve and look to somebody else, say, I see you, I see you. It’s not about me. One thing that I’m reminded of is when I was at university, I went along to the Christian Union. I’d switched universities halfway through my degree and I went along to the Christian Union and I thought, I’m only just going to pop in and see what it’s like. I don’t need to be here because actually I’m living at home. I’ve got my friends and I’ve got my church. I don’t really need to be here, so I don’t need this in my life, so I’ll just go and see what it’s like. At the end, I was about to say, Oh, think, Oh, that was nice, but I’ll figure I’m not going to join. One thing that really struck me was the person who was leading it. I had a chat with her at the end. It was a small CU. It was a very small CU. It was, you know, handful of people. And she just said, We really, really need you. Please, can you think about coming because we need you? And that hadn’t even dawned on me. I was thinking, Oh, I don’t need this in my life, but actually, for them, it was We need you because you’re sister in Christ, and we need you to help us make the gospel known on campus that stayed with me over time, that we need to be both of those things. We need to be open to be to being needy, and we both know we need to be open to being needed as well. You are. You are going to be a gift. You are a gift to your church family. Your relationship with someone else is going to be a gift to them and necessary for them.

Adam Curtis:
And actually, Christians have particular needs, which only other Christians can like help them with when a Christian is yet struggling, when they got questions, when they’re wrestling with things about faith or they’re suffering, they actually need. It’s only another Christian who can get alongside them, who can preach them The gospel who can remind them of God’s truth, who Can pray with them. Who can, Who can walk alongside them in a spiritual sense and actually help them meet that meet that need. But then the exact reverse is also true that actually there will be friends around us, Christian friends around us who will have moments of great sort of Christian need. And actually what they require in that moment is someone else who loves the Lord Jesus to walk alongside them. I’ve got wonderful non-Christian friends who can be very loving and generous, but I have particular needs which are only Christians can meet, and I am particularly equipped to meet the needs of other Christians.

Sara Snow:
Yes, exactly. I think some of my oldest and best friends are not Christians, and they are a wonderful gift to me. They are made in God’s image and I need them and they are wonderful. What struck me with the last year again is that when there’s nothing you can do actually when a situation is rubbish and it’s not going to be fixed and there’s nothing, there’s no practical thing that you can do. What do you need in friends? And actually, really, I really noticed how people really struggle with not not being able to do anything for me, which was interesting. I wasn’t wanting anyone to do anything, but it was what people said to me. Some of my Christian friends would, As I was saying earlier, just sort of would be able to point me to the hope that there was in Christ and in God who was, for me just reminding me that God is good. Reminding me the truths of scripture that he is close. He is near. I can cry out to him. He is never going to leave me. He knows what’s going on and he wants the best for us. They point constantly, pointing me to the truths of who God is was so important. Some dear friends who don’t know the Lord, I think sometimes the best that somebody could say is, you’ll be all right. It will be OK. Or you’re being strong. Just keep being strong and interestingly, Somebody said, I’ll send you all the rainbows and sunshine thoughts that I can think of. I understand their intent. It was. I understand the kindness in their in their intent, but it was didn’t mean anything. It didn’t count. It didn’t make a difference. It didn’t count for anything. So actually, yes, I need I need to be reminded of those truths and those deep promises from scripture.

Adam Curtis:
Wonderful. Thank you. Sara, you’ve painted a real, beautiful picture there of what Christian friendships can look like and feel like now. Maybe for that person who’s very new to the Christian faith and Christian things, How would they actually go about like building good friendships or someone who’s listening to this being like, Oh, I want a friendship like that, someone who needs me and someone who helped me when I’m being needy? Yeah. What advice would you give to someone who wants to build good Christian friendships?

Sara Snow:
We can look out for those who are around us already. So in your church family, who is there, who is around you? I think one of the beautiful things about church family is that it’s full of people that we might not have met in other walks of life that might not be like us in the same age or stage. But those relationships can be so rich, so we don’t have to go and find people that are exactly the same as us, but we can start with who is in my church family, who can I go and sit alongside? Who can I talk to? Who is there already? How can I love them? How can I serve them? What do they need from me? And then in in humility and prayerfulness and honesty. Talk to them about how we are needy, too. Can you pray this for me? Can you? Can you help me with this?

Leah Sax:
And Sara I’m going to remind you of a piece of advice. I vividly remember you giving me. I remember being curled up on your sofa in one of our many put the world to rights chats with a good cup of coffee, I think I was just getting at that time quite discouraged that there was nobody in my immediate church fam who was in any way like me, whether it was age or stage or profession or personality, or I don’t know, hobbies that we enjoyed. I just remember you just gave me such wisdom, which is you don’t need to look for friends who are like you. So kind of, you know, don’t worry if you don’t have this stage or this age or this job in common, God is at work in that friendship. And just giving me the courage to go and seek people out and be really intentional with with friendship just completely stuck with me and I just found so encouraging. So thank you very much for that piece of encouragement.

Sara Snow:
Oh, it sounds very wise. I hope that was me who said that.

Leah Sax:
I’m sure it will, Sara. I’m convinced it was. I remember it. I remember that the mug. But yeah, it’s just so good to know that God is at work and just be encouraged to get out of your your safety zones. Because although I am, the talkiest has passed on a podcast. Both of you know me very well. I know that I’m the world’s biggest introvert and sometimes going to talk to new people at church can be absolutely terrifying. So just thank you for encouraging me to seek out and be really thank good friend.

Sara Snow:
You have been a great friend to me all these years. Goodness me,

Leah Sax:
I also just realised in true friendship, I interrupted the conversation you and Adam were having about being needy and needed and seeking out friendships. Was there anything else you were thinking and pondering about friendship?

Sara Snow:
Just thinking about social media and friendships on those, you know, I I’m conscious that we can have in inverted commas, friends on social media. You know, you can have six hundred friends or more. But actually, how how many of those could you ring up in a crisis? I wonder if we could. And I’m sort of talking to myself here as well. I think just how how can I be intentional to the friends that are in front of me that I see regularly? That’s not going to be a big pool of people. I don’t think it can be if we can show up, if we can ring up, if we can message, if we can pray for a handful of people, then we can be really good friends to them. We don’t want to spread ourselves too thinly and try and be everything to everybody because that doesn’t work. We want to walk beside someone in life.

Leah Sax:
Yeah, that’s helpful, because what you’re not saying here is here’s your church family. Go and be best friends with all of them. It is kind of wisdom and discernment and prayer and going, these are the people that are Being called to my heart, these are the people I should love in a very specific way or indeed how you can be loved by other people because there will be times in our lives where, like we just aren’t equipped to give out in that way and we will be needy and we’re just not strong enough to, we feel not strong enough to go and chat to people. What wisdom would you give to someone who feels they can’t go and seek friendship proactively at the moment?

Sara Snow:
I think it’s a great place to start, but with with prayer, sometimes I’ve prayed for friends who challenge me and tell me things that a difficult rebuke me where necessary. And actually, the Lord is gracious. If he he hears our prayers and and he knows our weaknesses and our frailties and the things we find hard so we can ask God, please help me, or please provide for me some somebody, some people, and that might be in a small group. It might be somebody that you end up sitting next to at church. It might be another Christian who’s not in your church family. I think we can ask God to provide those people in our lives. Because they say they’re so precious, I think one of my best friends is about 20 years older than me, and she is someone who is able to speak. There’s a proverb that says wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses. And that is so true from a good friend. You Know wounds from a friend can be trusted. She can say something really harsh to me, but actually, I can trust her because she I know that she loves me. She loves the Lord. She wants me to be walking with him and trusting him more and more so she can say the hard things and get away with it

Leah Sax:
It’s because she’s loving you with God’s word. It’s because it’s a wound from love, isn’t it? Yeah.

Sara Snow:
Yes, exactly. And one of my other friends became one of my best friends, basically by doing that. She was a peer, but I was, I was messing around and doing all sorts of things that I shouldn’t have that weren’t helpful, that were unwise decisions when I was at university. Namely, you know, in relation to boys. And she just. Sat me down and said, What are you doing? Why are you doing this? And I sort of gave as good as I got, as good as I thought at that time, thinking, why does it matter? It doesn’t matter. But of course it did matter, and I was struck by her forthrightness and her, you know, her challenge? Yeah. And yet, goodness me, I’m so thankful to her, and she became one of my best friends because she she she was able to do that hard thing of stepping out and saying something that she knew I was going to be hurt by or perhaps offended by at the time,

Leah Sax:
But that was important. Sara, you’ve painted this beautiful picture of friendship that loves and rebukes and is needy and needed. But what happens when friendship amongst believers breaks down and feels irreconcilable? How do you go to go with that? How can you? How should you reconcile?

Sara Snow:
Oh yeah, that’s a great question. And it’s real, isn’t it? Because our friendships aren’t always going to be perfect. We will say and do the wrong things. We will hurt one another unintentionally or intentionally, and we will need forgiving or to forgive. I think perhaps, you know, the Lord’s Prayer, where he where Jesus teaches believers to pray, forgive us our sins as we forgive others who sin against us is striking. That is in the prayer that Jesus teaches to his believers. Forgiveness is going to be something that we need to pray for and that we need to pray about, and we ought to be doing regularly because God has forgiven us so much, and he gives us the resources to forgive others as well. In a church family as Christians, we are united by the blood of Christ. If we are out of fellowship with each other, if we are angry with one another, then we can’t be taking communion with each other. We need to go and sort it out with one another before we come to the Lord’s Supper and and share that meal of faith together. So that’s something that is a that we really need to be careful of. God has reconciled us to himself. Therefore, we need to be reconciling with one another.

Leah Sax:
Hmm. Sara, we’ve seen how friendship is hard. A loving wound and a good gift. If you had to summarise what we’ve been chatting about today, what would you say to our listeners?

Sara Snow:
Yeah, I would say that friendship is a beautiful gift from the Lord. We are created to be with other people, and he has given us this wonderful gift, and C.S. Lewis actually writes about it in in one of his books The Four Loves and in talking about Friendship. He describes a scene of him with his friends and and the enjoyment of that. If I’ll just I’ll just read it to you if that’s okay. He says those are the golden sessions when four or five of us, after a hard day’s walking, have come to our inn where our slippers are on our feet, spread out towards the blaze and our drinks at our elbows when the whole world and something beyond the world opens itself to our minds as we talk and no one has any claim on or any responsibility for another. But all our free men and equals as if we had first met an hour ago, while at the same time an affection mellowed by the years enfolds Us life, natural life has no better gift to give. Who could have deserved it? So I just love the way that he paints that picture of a pub scene, you know, sipping a beer, chatting with your mates, with your slippers on or whatever. And just that sense of, I’m not trying it. I’m not having to try and be somebody that I can be. I can just relax and share this relationship with another. It doesn’t always have to be about rebuking and correcting, although that is an important part of relationship and friendship. Actually, it’s it’s a gift of enjoyment as well. The Lord has given us friends, has given me a friend like, you Leah over the years here to, you know, where, where that depth of experience and just shared shared experience together is. It’s a wonderful thing and an enjoyable thing.

Adam Curtis:
Friendship is about being needed and being needy. Boom. I’ve never heard that phrase that I love it. I want to stick out my post on my wall because that’s just that’s just so helpful to describe what a beautiful vision friendship is.

Leah Sax:
Yeah. And it’s that two way-ness friendship goes both directions because, you know, friendship can be really hard.

Adam Curtis:
Oh yeah, they can be really, really hard. Sometimes it can be hard because you feel like I just didn’t have any. Yeah, or they could be hard because like our personalities just feel like they clash. And actually, who are the people who are at ease with?

Leah Sax:
Yeah. And remember something you’ve said to me in the past, friend, is that like, friendships are hard because do you even involved? We’re both sinners. It’s not like these are two perfect people just hanging out, going, alright, we are broken. So it is just going to be hard. But as Sara picked up on, we do have this unity which binds us together.

Adam Curtis:
Yeah, that’s what binds us, and it keeps them binding us together and keeps on pulling us together. And and it’s yeah, that crucial reason why we need each other.

Leah Sax:
And just to pick up on something else, Sara said. I am quoting her a lot, but like, am I defence She is literally my oldest friend. That intentionality we do sometimes just have to go up. Somebody go, Hi, can we be friends? Can we talk because we do need people around us? So sometimes we just have to pray. Lord, use this grow this.

Adam Curtis:
This friendship has. It’s very broad like it is. It is. It is a wound. Occasionally, hopefully not too often, but it is someone helping us and and us helping other people, but is also, yes, sitting by the fire and just being at ease and just the joy of another’s company. Real Christian? Friendship is very, very broad because actually different moments in life?

Leah Sax:
Yeah, a different moments in life who need different things. There’ll be days where you need a cup of coffee and a hug, and they’ll do days when you just need to go for a walk and hang out or a kickabout. That’s right. That’s me trying to relate and being sporty. And clearly, I’ve never been on any form of kick about him in my entire. I was trying to relate. I was trying to relate.

Adam Curtis:
Oh yeah, through and through. Like, I’ve only recently got a housemate, but one of the things I absolutely love about it at the end of a busy day, I can come home and we just have a laugh. Yeah, I love that. I just want to love.

Leah Sax:
Yeah, yeah.

Adam Curtis:
Sometimes in work, it doesn’t happen, which is one of the reasons why it’s a joy. Making a podcast with you Leah.

Leah Sax:
I know, but that’s what it is. I love it because we are friends. We are brother and sister, and it is a joy and that’s a good gift from the Lord.

Adam Curtis:
Yeah, it’s about seeing a friendship as a gift. This is part of the Lord blessing us this friendship.

Leah Sax:
So, Sara, we always like to ask our guests a surprise bonus question. I know, I know the drama I’m not giving. I’m not sure if we can can handle the drama anyway. This season, season 2’s Delight Podcast bonus question is who is the person who is most encouraged you in your family?

Sara Snow:
That is really hard, but the person that springs to mind is a great friend of mine who I don’t get to see in person very often. But she’s basically poured poured herself out for other people, and I feel like I’m on the receiving end of that and it’s an extraordinary place to be. She has got So many challenges and battles that she’s dealing with personally in her own life and in her own family. And yet her heart is so big that she wants to sort of scoop me under her wing as well and check in with me, love me and pray for me. I’m eternally thankful to the Lord for her and the way that she has prayed diligently for me, particularly over the last couple of years, and checks in with me, rings me up and challenges me as well. She’s taught me so much about what true friendship is and what walking with the Lord through difficult times looks like and is constantly encouraging me to turn my face to the Lord. Even when that’s really hard, you know, even if it’s just to help me, God. She will keep encouraging me to look to him, not to her, but to him. And that’s that’s a wonderful thing.

Leah Sax:
What a great gift. Sara, thank you so much for being our guest on Delight Podcast today.

Sara Snow:
Oh, thanks so much for having me. What a joy. This is. Great fun.

Adam Curtis:
It’s great fun.

Leah Sax:
Thank you so much to Sara Snow for being our guest on episode eight of Delight Podcast. We can’t wait to be with you again next week for episode nine, where we’ll be looking at the topic of spiritual battles with Tom and Katie Parsons. In the meantime, this is Adam and Leah here to life as he’s signing off.

Adam Curtis:
Bye bye bye.