A few days ago I got to meet my besties baby.

It’s Ambers first time having a human, so it was fun, weird, and joy-inducing to see it all firsthand.

When you’ve known someone almost 25 years of your life, and then all of a sudden they’ve got this human they are in charge of keeping alive, I’m not sure you see them in a new light, but you see them in an admirable light. You admire their courage to take on something so fragile and unknown.

Being a mom is admirable and hard.

I saw the tiredness in Amber’s eyes. Honestly, I heard the fear in her voice at times when she talked about what it feels like to be a mom. But through those two steady states, I saw her deep rooted love for Zoe the most. Love—- Something I noticed she wanted to describe during one of our conversations, but could almost find no words to portray it accurately (… maybe she couldn’t find the words because she’d been up the whole night before?). The love that reaches beyond tired eyes and confusing newborn baby cries. Love that actually casts out all fear.

It continually gives me bone shivers and soul tremors that the love Amber gives is sustained and provided by the One who sees beyond her unknowns and fears. The One whose rod and staff comfort her as she walks His path of righteousness. As a mom, He will give her rest in green pastures and lead her beside still waters. As a mom, He will show her what it’s like to care for and lead her own sheep.

And as for Amber and I, I believe he will lead our friendship through my own fears and anxieties too.

I was afraid of our relationship changing when she got pregnant. I was afraid our new normal would only consist of conversations revolving around babies, kids, parenting, cloth diapers, etc.

For two people who have walked the earth together for twenty-five years, I was afraid of being in two very different life stages for once. We’ve stumbled and struggled through middle school braces, high school drama (in the theatre and out of the theatre if you know what I mean), and similar college experiences. For the most part, we dated our husbands at the same time, got engaged in the same year, and got married within a year of each other. When you’ve lived such similar life paths, how do you relate when it feels like you started taking two very different paths?

Sometimes I think being a Christian means walking the path that’s in front of you, but being willing to interact with other people on paths that really don’t look like ours. Some Christians, I think, are actually pretty bad at this. Myself included at times. What does it look like to walk the entrepreneur/college spiritual mentor path when my best friend is walking the mom path? What does it look like for my best friend to walk the mom path while her daughter is only just beginning to exist in this world?

Maybe sometimes I will be sad that we aren’t necessarily on the same page any more. But maybe it means I get to be pumped for who Amber gets to be. Maybe it means we get to celebrate the two different humans we are becoming. Maybe two different life stages will continually remind us that no matter where we are, it’s more about Who we follow.