We checked our schedules. We were still good for dinner at 6 p.m.—two moms connecting after a busy day at a conference we were at with our husbands. The conversation started off with the usual niceties, and then took a serious turn as we circled then landed on the topic of our children.

I went first. My son is out of the house and not really following the Lord. She had asked a direct question about him, and I couldn’t figure out a way to dodge it.

My friend said that her oldest daughter switched colleges after COVID and is now enrolled at one closer to home.

We took the conversation to a deeper level as I confessed my son’s struggles with serious mental health issues for which he sees no need for help. Her youngest daughter, now graduating from high school, had been bullied throughout high school and sank into depression. She is slowly moving forward, but it is a hard road for her.

“I keep thinking back, trying to figure out where I went wrong as a mother,” I said, a bit let-down that my friend didn’t react to my comment right away. We continued our meal together.

Later, at the dessert bar, my friend referenced my feelings as a mom and responded. “I feel the same way,” she said softly as we chose our desserts from the dessert bar. “We mothers do.”

Sisters in the trenches is how another friend would describe us. Only my trench is here in Wheaton, in Winfield; her trench is in Lahore, Pakistan. Our dinner was in Siofok, Hungary, at the 2022 LittWorld conference. Our friendship is in Christ.

Our cultural differences enhance minds that are one in Christ despite our differences in culture and style. In friendship, we learn to love, different as we are from one another.

American Lorraine is direct and says whatever is on her mind; Pakistani Jingle is quiet and thoughtful in sharing what is on her mind. She takes time to share and chooses the next evening to tell me that her pastor has a son, a bit older than mine, who has the same struggles.

She gets it. Her pastor gets it. Now we are praying together for our children. We get it together. Had I plowed through the conversation, impatient for Jingle to respond like American me, I would have missed all this. I had to wait.

This probably explains why I cringe when someone says, “Oh, they’re perfect. They’re just like us. They fit right in.”

Other than the glaring theological flaw in that statement, what does it say about people who aren’t like us? You know, the imperfect ones over there, who don’t fit in? People who may not look like us or communicate the way we do?

Jesus’ mindset was all about loving and rescuing people who were not like him in some pretty fundamental ways.

In Luke 14:12-14, Jesus told the parable of the great banquet with its guest list: the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind (v. 13). Left off the guest list were friends, brothers, relatives or rich neighbors - not everyone on this list is like everyone else. The people on this list are not the ones we normally want to be around, but, I want to be on that list. Could it be that Jesus is describing me as one of the poor, crippled, lame or blind?

Let's learn to enjoy the differences now because I think the banquet ahead is going to be beautifully full of them.