I’ve written about friends in previous posts. Nose hair friends. 21st Century friends. Even three types of hard times friends. This morning a new thought bloomed based on the song in this video.

I first heard this song after being pointed to it by a nose hair friend going through hard times. It’s on my 2025 Rest Playlist, which I started my day with today. Because friendship was on my mind, I listened to this song with a different ear and heart.

Here’s the thought that surfaced:

Some friends are better valley friends; some friends are better highlands friends.

I can hear some head scratching. “John, true friends, real friends don’t care about valleys and highlands. They’re in it for all of it.” Heard. But let me tell you my experience.

Back in the early-90s while in my 20s, I had a group of friends that got together often to play card games. Anywhere from 4-6 of us. We were friends mostly through work and church. Some were married, some single. We were very much highlands friends.

Eventually we all parted ways as relationships go, yet we tried to keep in touch. And then, one of the couples got a divorce. In that moment, we were challenged.

I had never experienced friends getting a divorce. For that matter, I’d never experienced anyone divorcing that was close to me. It was foreign territory. An unknown valley that I was more observing than experiencing. And as much as I tried, it was just awkward. The result? These days we’d call it ghosting. I felt a lot of guilt about it.

Forward five years, another couple of church friends got divorced. This time, I knew better, and I was the valley friend they needed. I had grown in what it meant to be a friend through the valley. That experience led me to go back to my first divorced friend and acknowledge I could have been a better friend through his valley.

Here I sit almost thirty years later, and it’s like I’m the opposite-better valley friend than highland friend. And when I listened to this song this morning with my friend evaluator hat on, it was a call to grace.

Grace for myself. Sure, I’d like to be the ideal friend regardless of the space. When I believe I’m not, grant myself grace to grow in whichever land my friend is walking.

Grace for my friends. Sure, I’d like them to be ideal friends regardless of my space. When I’m tempted to say they aren’t, grant them grace to grow in the land I’m walking.

Maybe the lesson isn’t as much about valley and highland friends. It’s about grace granting, to others and to myself. “All the same.”