Friendship for Grown-Ups What I Missed and Learned Along the Way

By Lisa Whelchel

I was not drawn to read the book Friendships for Grown-Ups – What I Missed Along The way by Lisa Welchel because I knew her as the person who played the character of Blair on The Facts of Life. It was actually the title that drew me to the book.
In this book Lisa shares about her personal need and longing for deeply connected friendships. She describes friendships from her youth through current relationships today and she calls them a journey with many bumps in the road and no final destination. Each corner you turn promises more adventure.
Lisa shares about the wall of busyness she built to protect her from intimate relationships and the freedom that came from true, intimate friendships when she began to tear down that wall and other obstacles that protected her from becoming transparent.
Lisa explains that there are levels of friendship. Some may be just an acquaintance for life while others are true “safe” friends for life. She offers suggestions to take you from one level of friendship to the next and how to identify “safe” friends.
Lisa shares how her faith in God is the foundation to her having authentic friendships and her friends are the visible manifestation to her of God’s grace. Like Gods grace, true “safe” friendship says that there is nothing a person can do to change the way a friend feels about you or you about your friend.
I relate to Lisa and the struggles she has had with friendships. I feel like I am a lot like her in many ways. To me it seems easier to just not have close relationships. When you open your heart to trust a friend only to have it trampled and torn because your trust was misplaced, then a person tends to withdraw from going back to that place because of the pain and humiliation. Lisa has shown me that just because one friend betrays does not mean that all will do the same. She has shown me that I am missing out on the “visible manifestation of God’s grace” by not stepping out and trusting once again to find true “safe” friendship. I am now beginning the same journey Lisa. Thank you for sharing.

California Tried to Keep Us!

April 2oth, very early in the AM we left Fort Worth for Reno, Nevada. We traveled through rain, sleet, snow and sunshine along the way. Even had a mini snow storm for a few miles. As we traveled across the Hoover Dam, they have new security measures in place and so we were stopped, boarded and dismantled to make sure we were not planning to blowup the Dam or something similar. Dodd woke up to a flashlight shining in his face, how rude! I actually slept through all of it. I can hardly believe I did this but I had been up for 24 hours when I went to bed a couple of hours before this so I must have been comatose for awhile. We stopped in Silver Springs to Ron's mother in laws business so she could give us $100 in free fuel and some drinks. We arrived April 21st with several hours to spare before we had to unload the equipment and get setup. This was a real blessing so we could get showered and rest before the service. The mountains around Reno were snow covered and the temperature, I thought, was on the cool side. Of course all the guys would argue that with me.

We had a great service at Lemmon Valley and saw some familiar faces from the last time we were here. We stayed the next 2 nights in the church parking lot. The Pastor and his wife left us with their car in case we needed it. We went to the Walmart on Thursday to get some supplies. It is always nice to get off the bus for even a few minutes and get some air.

That morning Tamara came and knocked on the bus door and asked the guys if they would mind coming over to her mother Lily's house about 4 houses down the block and sing a couple of songs for her. She was unable to attend the concert the evening before because she had a reaction that required an ambulance to come to her house. They found she was OK and left her at home but she was so discouraged that she missed the concert. The guys agreed and she wanted it to be a surprise. So we went over and when she answered the door, I do not think she realized who we were. Steve said we had come over to look at her house. She cautiously said "OK" and looked at her daughter like we were some kind of crazy people. After we came in Steve told her that they had come to sing her a couple of songs because she had missed the night before. She just melted and as she began to cry she said in a shaky voice "OK". She is a sweet spirit and thoroughly enjoyed the mini concert just for her.

On our way out of town the next morning we went to the local Good Sam RV Park to dump the black water tank and fill the water. The owner was gracious enough to let us use the showers, so we had a spacious nice hot shower before we hit the road again.

We stopped at a rest area at Donner Pass because the engine and the generator were heating. We all got out and enjoyed the beautiful scenery and had a snowball fight while we waited for the engines to cool. The rest of the trip through CA was filled with vineyards and fruit tree orchards all along Hwy 99, as far as you could see.

Because of the down time with the engine and the very narrow winding roads to this little country church, we made the next stop in Mountain Ranch on the 23rd just in time to get things unloaded and setup. It was a beautiful place out in the countryside of California. I had to take a picture of it for Diane who is collecting pictures of churches. I think I will do that too. I have been collecting pictures of stained glass windows but old church pictures sound like a nice collection too.

We had previously been in contact with Andy from our Facebook page. Sherman Andrus had contacted him and recommended us to go to the prison with him in California to minister. We were invited to Tehachapi state prison south of Bakersfield and expected to do that on Saturday night but found out that we needed at least 15 days to get the high security clearance so we determined we would have to try and make it next year. Andy also wanted us to know that he would love for us to come to Folsom and San Quentin next year too. Wow! What an opportunity that will be. We went on to the fairgrounds in Bakersfield and spent the night in the campground there. We had to find a back part of the field to park in because a woman came beating on our door and told us that the generator was bothering her. It is a necessity that we would rather not have running too but it has to run to keep the fridge, furnace or air conditioner going.

The morning of Sunday the 25th we parked behind the barns and pushed our equipment (thank God for wheels) over to the Amphitheater for the service. It was rather warm and full sunshine. Had a sunburn by the end of the service. We had a great turnout. Jim says the biggest one ever. I had spoken to my brother Steve who lives near Adelanto about an hour away a couple of days before. He was going to come for the service but did not make it until we were almost finished packing up the equipment and had to move on to the next church. I was able to visit with him as he helped us load the equipment. It was to quick a "hi and goodbye" after not having seen each other for 6 years or so.

We had to travel back up north 4 hours to Winton for the sunday evening service at Evergreen. This was a wonderful group of people and the whole church except for a few on their knees at their seats, were at the alter. Ron's mother in law and some other relatives came to the service that evening. After we got packed up and had supper on the bus. Ron started out the driving and Greg and I got up at 2:30 to take over. We were near Modesto. When we were 12 miles on the south side of Bakersfield California tried to keep us! the bus engine heated and siezed up. After several hours there, Jim Rowlett called and said he had a cousin in Bakersfield that owned a Peterbuilt shop. The tow truck came and during the hookup process, he had to do something with the rear wheels. When he was taking things apart he found that a nut for the wheel bearing had come completely off and we were about to lose our wheels. We were just about to go up into the mountains of CA when this happened. From now on when something like this happens we will just look up and say "thank you Jesus!" knowing there is a reason for it. We were towed into Bakersfield to the Peterbuilt shop. We rented a truck and car to get home. We stayed the first night (April 26th) at Needles, CA because we were so exhausted. Then we drove all the way through the rest of the way and arrived home at 5am on Wednesday. On the way home, I put up a note on our Praise Inc Facebook page about the bus and asked for help. By the end of the first week we had around $5,000.00 of the estimated $20,000.00 for the repair. God's people are just awesome!