Devotions based on Stephen Smith’s book, Soul Custody

  “A soul friendship is an open place for another soul to emerge, a safe place for the action of friendship making, which is no easy task.” Sometimes we mistakenly assume that one broken person plus another broken person equals a whole. But our math is wrong. One broken person plus another broken person just equals more broken people.  What we really offer another is our wounds, our fears of being rejected, our history etc.  But when we experience God in our midst soul friendships happen. We offer ourselves to one another and feast in the fellowship that can transform us.  Friendship is really a movement from me to we.  To be present to you means that I must be prepared to be temporarily absent from me. My selfish desires to be heard and understood must be put aside for the sake of the other. It’s not about just me. It’s about us!  We move from the journey alone to the journey together.  “When we love one another deeply from the heart we move out of our own hearts into the sacred space of our friends- where peace and fear coexist, where trust and doubt find an equal dwelling place, where secrets are so embedded and darkness so great that we long for someone to bring us light.” In soul friendships we move out of the darkness and into the light of not only each other’s presence but His presence-the true light.