Brotherly Love

Or, When a grown man cries for you

There were 17 of us around the long table, gorgeous centerpieces of eucalyptus and daisies, with magenta candles to match the colors lining the middle. Everyone was there to celebrate a new decade of life for the 17th person. The odd number. Me.

When my friend, Kelly, texted a few weeks earlier and asked how I’d like to celebrate my 40th birthday with some local friends, we tossed around a whole bunch of ideas: a fancy dinner out, a hike with girlfriends, manicures and pedicures. But when I thought about it over the next few days, I realized that there was something I really missed since my divorce 18 months ago.

Men.

(Not what you’re thinking. Stay with me.)

In the most beautiful and life-giving ways, I have been surrounded by my girlfriends since my marriage ended. My friends cleaned my house on Sunday evenings for three months, they dropped off meals, sent surprise Venmo money for coffee, watched my kids when I had to meet with lawyers, drove with me to sign divorce papers, and cried tears right next to me with each and every moment of my lamenting, “How is this really my life?”

My girlfriends held me up in every way when I was at my weakest. They were the hands and feet of Jesus.

But the church is made up of more than just women.

And I missed my friendships with their husbands. Because as soon as you’re not a couple anymore, what happens to those friendships?

I look down to the end of the long table toward my friend Kelly, who has just put her dinner fork down and pushed her plate a little further away from her, the universal sign of being finished. She scoots her chair back to stand up, catches my eyes, and smiles as she walks down to my seat at the table.

“Okay everyone, we all know that one of the ways we can love our girl well is with the gift of words, so we are going to take a minute to encourage Katie tonight,” she says, standing behind the chair I am sitting in, her hands on my shoulders. “And as I was praying about how to celebrate her tonight, I was reminded that our words should not be simply to flatter Katie, but to fortify her for the season of life she’s in and the work for the years ahead.”

I put my hand up to my chest—what I always do when I am bracing to receive something like words of kindness—and settle back into my chair to listen.

“Dave, will you start us off?” Kelly asks.

Dave? Her husband? Dave is a friend of mine. A brother in Christ. But he’s a man, not one of my girlfriends.

“Hang on, Kel, I’m going to need some tissue for this,” I joke, trying to counter the lump already forming in my throat.

//

I was the girl who grew up with as many guy friends in high school and college as girl friends. I have always valued the different, almost nuanced ways good guy friends can love and encourage me. The longest-standing friendship in my life is with Kevin, a boy I met in kindergarten. We both had M’s in front of our last name so we were always in line by one another, often seated together, always endeared to each other. He cheered me on at soccer games my entire life, visited me in college, and asked me to be in his wedding as a bridesmaid, and I was so honored to stand behind his soulmate, Trisha. Kevin still texts me, from a few hundred miles away, the kind of encouragement that sometimes makes me cry and other times makes me belly laugh, because that’s what our friendship has always done. He is still one of my favorite people in the world 35 years later. He’s a dude, but his brotherhood means everything to me.

I know that male and female friendships change once you’re married, that boundaries and priorities need to be put in place in a way that everyone feels safe, comfortable, healthy, and holy. But I have noticed, in singleness, particularly in Christian circles, it’s not always clear how men can care well for the woman in their lives who is no longer married, so they often just…don’t. They stay quiet. Wave hello and keep walking past me at church, maybe offer a “good to see you!” on their way to their own family’s row.

To me, it seems like the assumption is that I would rather be with just girlfriends, as opposed to being the 17th person at the table. But when Kelly asked about my birthday, I realized that besides church and homegroup, I couldn’t remember the last time I had enjoyed an occasion in the company of both men and women. And I have missed my guy friends. I have missed doing things with couples, even though I’m not a part of one anymore.

I told Kelly over text, “I think I’d just love a backyard barbeque, friends and their husbands, all of us hanging out together.” I felt the tiniest bit nervous saying what I wanted this bluntly, wondering if I made sense, if I would be misunderstood. So I followed it up with, “Is that okay?”

And Kelly responded, “It sounds perfect.”

She understood the assignment, and rallied the troops.

//

My friend Dave starts my birthday blessings by reminding me of the most important thing about who I am: I am redeemed. I have Jesus. At the foundation of everything I have and could ever walk through in my life, that’s the most important truth.

Then Collin reads Psalm 1 and says that he sees me staying planted by streams of living water, and encourages me to stay there.

TJ starts choking up before he even begins speaking, and so of course, so did I. To see your dear friend’s husband start to cry over you, over what happened to your family, I cannot explain what that meant to me. “Katie,” he finally gets out, “whenever I have heard your name around our home, there has been weight and reverence to it. My wife adores you, and you are so beloved to our family…”

Ryan lightens the atmosphere next by reading the funniest letter, a note that he has “scrivened” for me, the writer in the group, making us all cry tears of laughter as every sentence was clearly Shift-F7ed (the synonym function) to death. But the sentiment is clear: “We love you.”

Brandon recalls the times his wife, Marissa, had come home from helping me and the kids, and that he knew how tough many nights were, and he has never stopped praying for us.

And then John, Emily’s husband, also starts crying. Before he speaks a word, the love behind what he wants to say is already so clear. He puts his hand on his chest, chokes up a little more, then finally says, “My mom raised me.” He has to gather himself for a moment after that sentence, and really, so do I. Because I am looking at the kind of man I hope I can raise my boys to be like: a man who can speak across the table to another woman—a woman he knows a bit about what it is really like to be living her life—with tears of gratitude for the strength of his own mother. My lips are shaking trying to hold back the tears, as John continues. “Her prayers saved me, Katie. She changed the direction of an entire family tree. I believe you will, too.”

And that belief in me, said out loud? I don’t even have words for it. I cannot stop the tears, but I don’t need to, they are such grateful tears. I nod at John, and because I can’t get my voice to work at the moment, I mouth the words thank you, like we both mutually understand what John is telling me is more than just a platitude. It’s like he really wants me to know: I’m living proof that God is faithful, and that you can do this.

Of course my girls take their turn to encourage me, too. They point out the ways they’ve seen me show up in the hard moments, and all the ways they promise to be there in the years to come. They make me laugh. They tell me they’ll hold up my arms when I am too tired to keep them lifted.

I am standing here today because of the consistency of their friendship, love, prayers, and encouragement, not just that night, but all the time.

But hearing from their husbands? My brothers?

I don’t think I could have articulated before this night just how much I’ve needed it. How much it means to see a grown man cry tears over what we’ve been through, to acknowledge how much the kids and I are carrying.

I can so easily find reasons to be bitter at men, to lean heavily into my smash-the-patriarchy side. My trust issues for any man are, let’s just call them significant. But these men were willing to get vulnerable, and to express their sadness about our reality. Hearing their words bolstered my heart in a fresh and profound way.

If I may be so bold to say, history does not tell the stories of too many men being publicly, openly sad over the injustices women have lived through. It was my friends’ very sadness, and their anger at the sin, that spilled over to me as kindness, love, and belief. I cannot help but wonder what the church would look like if there was more of this.

It all feels a bit sacred—this night, these words I just heard, they meant everything to me.

We end the evening with a prayer, and then Dave makes a joke that has everyone laughing and brings us all back to the light and celebratory mood we had enjoyed all night. Kelly carries the cake out to the table and 16 adults sing Happy Birthday to me, taking pictures of me blowing out the candles, like this moment really matters to them, too.

To have people in your life, sisters and brothers, who not only see you in your challenges, but make your special moments theirs, too? This is no small thing. In fact, I’d say it's everything.

It would be impossible to fit the village of men and women who have loved us around one table. But these are some of my people. Our life preservers.