Find Your Inner Circle with Lindsey Meyer and Ashley Flowers

April 19, 2022

Jennie Allen

Bible teacher, founder of IF:Gathering

Jennie and two of her closest friends Lindsey Meyer and Ashley Flowers sit down and open up about what it looks like for them to choose each other every day.

This whole journey was the story of us redefining community as we landed in Dallas. What did we want? How did we do it? How did we build it? Ashley Flowers is a mom of 4 and has been married for 20 years. Recently, she went back to school to get a Master's in biblical counseling. Her husband, Zach is my brother. Lindsay Meyer is a mom of 3. Also, she's an artist and a designer.

How We Met

Ashley is my sister-in-law and we've known each other for about 27 years. She's felt like my sister from the moment I met her. She is such a kindred friend to me. I moved to Dallas and I was scared. I didn't have a lot of friends but I had a family. I had Ashley. Then, Ashley was friends with Lindsey. Lindsey and Ashley are both relationship coaches to me. They've been friendship coaches and brought about a lot of healing in my life in different ways. 

Each one of them has played a role that has taught me and grown me as a friend. They're each so different, but bring a strong force to my life in a powerful life-changing way.We've been good friends for over 5 years now. When we all became friends, it was pretty easy pretty fast. 

What took it from acquaintance to deep friendship?

Lindsey: "I was going through a dark season with adoption and felt alone. I wanted to talk to somebody face to face. I think I asked for Jennie's number. We met at a restaurant; now our restaurant. Then, I probably went a little too deep too quickly. I laid it out there. I was like: "I'm struggling with this. Did you ever feel this way?" I needed to be able to say this to someone who's been through this. I left that night feeling like I had said too much. However, it made me feel at home with what I was saying. It was so healing to do that but I didn't know how that was going to go after that."

When Lindsey shared all that, it was super tender and vulnerable and she cried at dinner. Then, I felt like I can reciprocate and feel safe with her. She showed me it's okay to cry over dinner and say what's going on. It's usually hard and embarrassing to share. This experience was what quickly made us friends and it made it feel like I could share things with her quickly. 

Are there differences in each of us that we all bring? 

There is something powerful about not just having a best friend, but having a group where you're all best friends. Our differences are what make sense. It's the reason we enjoy each other so much. For us, Lindsay is the planner. She will make it happen. She initiates a lot. It's one of the greatest gifts because it's said that quality time only comes from quantity time.  You stumble on quality; you don't arrive at it like "I have five minutes to have it". Keep the amount of time you're spending together high. That's one thing that has been magic about our friendship. We have clocked significant hours together. 

You must have somebody to initiate; that person is probably you. It's just hard to put that on people. Being an initiator is a dying art. People do not initiate. They wait for someone else to call them. We're talking about the inner circle. We are not talking about doing this with a dozen people in your life. 

What was powerful in Lindsay and I getting to talk was that we could ask ourselves: how do we love and care for her? What do we need to do for our friend? 

Lots of times, after dinner, we would sit around and talk. We would cry. There's still a lot of crying because there's always something to cry about. We would also laugh and drink. It wasn't planned. It's almost always spontaneous with us. 

Not everybody has to meet a certain personality but there needs to be someone who says," let's all come tonight. We're all coming." Then everybody should be flexible enough to say: I'm open to that. 

Ashley brought in the Challenger. She didn't let me settle. She pushes me. I would say she fought for us. Everybody certainly wants someone like Ashley in their life. 

Maintaining Friendship

First, you have to seek people out. That is the biggest thing about friendship; it can't happen unless you're going after people. Also, you have to be willing to be flexible. Make choices for your lives to interlock. With working out, for example, we all signed up for the same place. There's something about the proximity that makes it a lot easier too. We can ride together to dinner; we can run over to each other's house. You don't have to plan so hard when it's proximate.  If you live in an isolated place, you can do this via zoom. You have to see people. Even if you live further out, you'd probably still have people in your life that you're seeing. Furthermore, for us, our husbands have all been super supportive of our getting together. That could be so because they see how we better one another and we come home and hopefully we're challenging each other to be better wives, and moms? 

This is not just for girls. Our husbands are great friends as well. We traveled together; we spend a lot of time together. This is not a book for girls. This is not a subject for girls. The guys need each other too. The same principles apply. 

Why is vulnerability such an important part of friendship? 

Vulnerability is one of the most important things. You're never going to have deep friendships if you're not willing to share things with people. 

Ashley: I was always willing to share if someone was to ask but most people don't ask. They don't push it. I wanted to be pushed. I'm a challenger and I can push other people, but nobody was really pushing on me. I have grown so much in these years because they've challenged me. Even though I'm a challenger, they've challenged me with their different gifts and vulnerabilities.

It's safe because we all know each other's stuff. We've spent so many hours together over five years. All those hours were not about one thing. It was helpful parenting. It was walking through shoes; figuring out what to wear. It's figuring out futures. There's so much that has equaled those hours. It's been so fun and that's what it's supposed to look like. It's not like a big super planned thing. We've had to prioritize this and it's been worth it. However, it hasn't always been easy

Staying through conflict, and consistency

We went through some misunderstandings between Lindsay and Ashley. Both were hurt. We didn't know if it was going to get better. 

Lindsay: It wasn't like a blow-up disagreement; it was little irritations and misunderstandings that had happened over a series of months. We both felt misunderstood. We both felt like we had a side of the story that the other didn't understand. In my personality, when conflict comes, I need a little moment to think about it and process it. However, Ashley prefers to dive in and figure it out and get it over with.

Ashley: That was really hard for us. I was trying to move words to deal with it and then that made Lindsay uncomfortable. She started drawing back. She needed space but space was hurtful to me and I couldn't understand it. So the misunderstanding kept going on. When I was in that place I was like: I don't know who she is. I don't know if I can be friends with someone who I can't go to, get things out there and deal with them. I can't tell you the voice that was in my head. Then eventually Lindsay would call. Then she would start talking and my heart would not because I was hurt. When you've been that vulnerable with someone you can hurt one another even without trying to do it. That's scary but if I were to tell you what I am getting through all this and even through the conflict, I feel like we have a level. We respect one another. and I've learned things about myself. I've learned things about Lindsey. We have to be willing to learn; to be willing to be wrong even if we can justify ourselves. Oftentimes, we have contributed in ways. 

This was messy. This was hard. This was unknown. We didn't know if we would all get to the other side. Eventually, we did and we are better for it. I knew it was going to take time but I wasn't about to give up on our friendship. It was one of those things that we had to pray about and try to see the best in the other person. We had to get in it and talk through all that. There's something about having gone through that together; now we all have our story in the book of conflict. If you've done life with anybody, for any length of time, in this deep way, you will have conflict. 

You just have to say I'm committed, I'm not leaving. We're going to work this out.

Some hope 

After family, friendship is what I hold in the highest regard. The Lord Himself, the Trinity, is this God of community and so He wants this in our lives. You should do whatever you can to seek this out today in the smallest way. Ask God to reveal someone in your heart. Call or make a first step toward someone; knock on someone's door. People are starving for someone to extend an opportunity or a chance to get to know them. Have the courage. Give yourself a pep talk and walk into the room and fake it till you feel it. Ask somebody to do something with you; don't miss out. Additionally, we mustn't become possessive and say we're each other's ones and only. We should constantly invite other people into our friendships.

I find that to be so fun and gives space for everybody to have a friendship.