Meet Lane. Commonly known as Lane Tucker, because “it sounds like a movie star!”

Today it’s her birthday and we travelled to Cincinnati for a girls weekend. Her boyfriend just showed up to surprise her and take her to dinner (good work, Kaelin!) so I’m sitting in this empty hotel room with some time on my hands. These silent moments have provided me with some time to reflect on our friendship and all that she means to me, and though I don’t typically do blog “shout-outs,” I decided to break my own rule in honor of my best friend.

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I met Lane in third grade. She was an emaciated little thing and painfully shy. There were two things that first attracted me to her: 1. She had horrible hair, making me feel slightly less awful about my short bob with baby doll bangs and 2. She looked like she could really use a friend. I don’t remember our first encounter, but it must have gone well, because we didn’t spend a day apart for the next 4 years.

If I’m recalling correctly, I spent nearly every single day at her house. I was pretty well liked there because I pretended to like her siblings and I always helped Lane with math. If I’m being totally honest, our friendship made me feel like I was doing her some favors. Being that I, bob haircut and all, was the epitome of cool, I graciously took her under my wing and slowly introduced her to the cool life. I was the ring leader and she was my trusty side-kick. I really used this friendship to my advantage. Anytime I wanted something, I’d tell my parents that, “Lane would like to go to Dairy Queen” or “Lane thinks I need new shoes.” We did a lot of stupid things that stupid kids do – like spilling red nail polish on my carpet and cutting it out with scissors and peeing in Ziploc bags because I thought it would be a fun experience.

Then 9^th grade came and Lane realized she had long surpassed me in coolness, so she ditched our school and me and took her coolness (and thick black eye liner) elsewhere.

I ran into her at church a couple years later and it was the most painfully awkward conversation of my life. Yet shortly after that, we were back spending time together. It’s like we picked up right where we left off, filling each other in on all the latest details. Ever since then, we’ve been inseparable, so much so that I’m declaring Mark 10:9 our official friendship verse. (“What God brings together let no man separate.”)

Man couldn’t separate us if he tried. We joke about how dependent we are on one another, but it really isn’t a joke. When she was out of town for Christmas, I had a couple meltdowns. We hung out the night she got home, resenting the fact that we “hadn’t seen each other in weeks!” It had been 3 days.

We also joke that we complete each other, but that’s really not a joke either. Lane gets me. She listens to me like no one else is able to – like this one time we were in my car and I looked up an hour later only to realize she hadn’t spoken a word because I had yet to stop talking. And sometimes, words aren’t even necessary – like this one time we went out to eat and made it through the entire meal without speaking a single word to one another (full time jobs do a number to one’s attentiveness).

We don’t have a typical friendship. We don’t sit around and talk about boys like most teenage girls. Actually, we do, but that only makes up a fraction of our conversations. We talk more about buying a house together, doing mission work, and living to our fullest God-given potential. Sounds noble, huh? It’s not. The majority of our conversations are centered on our massive sin struggles (i.e. our frequent use of expletives), and God’s grace despite them.

Lane is the only person who can tell me all the awful things I do wrong, and I want to listen; I want her to tell me more! She tells me when I’m being a bossy pain in the butt, and I tell her when she’s being an indecisive thorn in my flesh. We don’t fight though, most of the time because we’re too tired for that, and besides, we couldn’t stay mad for more than an hour because we’d have important things to tell each other. Nothing compares to the light I see in her eyes when we’re eating thai food, or when we go to Gattiland and ride bumper cars, except for the light I see in them when we’re about to part ways for a couple hours in order to take a nap (again, full time jobs). Basically, this whole thing we have going is working out great and I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

But in all seriousness, I truly do believe Lane to be one of God’s greatest gifts to me. She listens to me for hours. She brings me presents for no reason. She gives so generously, sometimes without even knowing it (like right now because I’m sitting here eating part of her present from her boyfriend). She constantly encourages me and reminds me of truth. She fills her prayer journal with prayers for me. She understands God’s character and reflects that to others better than anyone I know. Those she introduces me to commend her for being friends with someone of “my kind,” and everyone I introduce her to ends up liking her way better than me. If you know Lane, you know she has a precious heart, a welcoming spirit, and a crazy love for all kinds of people. If you don’t know Lane, you should. 

I used to fancy myself the greatest thing to ever happen to Lane, but I realize now that I’ve had it all backwards. She’s a gift to me – one that keeps on giving. She continues to do wonderful things with this life she’s been given, and I consider myself lucky to be even a footnote in the novel her life.

I love her so much I just want to give her a hug- even though we have a strict “no hugging” policy. But what we lack in affection, we make up for in sarcasm, which I think we can both agree is our love language.

Happy Birthday, Lane. Thanks for being my bestie. I love you, friend!