Friendship- what a difficult word to explain. Yesterday, my
friend posted on Facebook that she wanted a friendship and didn’t want just
someone to small talk with and it got me thinking. Friendships are hard. You
would think with all the social media and the constant access to communication,
friendships would be easy. It would be
easy to say you have 300+ friends, because that is how many you follow or are
friends with on Facebook. In reality
however, those aren’t the deep friendships that you cultivate and
make-work.
A lot of times I will meet someone and think that I want to
be friends with her. We start off
strong, hanging out, having our kids play, sharing and talking, but within a
few months, we don’t get to hang out any more, we don’t see each other often,
and we aren’t able to understand why we are no longer close friends with them
because life has taken over. Friendship
requires effort. A good friendship or
relationship just doesn’t happen.
As a woman, I desire to have close relationships and
friendships, to share and be shared with.
Obviously, I seek this with my God and with my amazingly wonderful
husband, but women seek out other women a lot of times to have these
relationships with. (If a woman seeks
out a man for this kind of relationship, there could be issues with marriage
etc… but that is a different blog…)
I struggle when I see someone that I want to be friends with
having this amazing friendship with someone else. I get frustrated when life and busyness gets in the way. I have only a small handful close friends
right now, but I have so many other potential ones that it is so hard. I hate having to pick and choose whom I am
going to be able to spend time with and invest effort into the
relationship. Often times, I choose to
invest my time on Facebook or the ultimate time-sucker, Pintrest, instead of
investing in a real relationship. I
think that it is because REAL relationships and friendships are hard.
Our Christian Radio Station was talking about love this
morning. They were talking about it in terms
of marriage, but it relates to friendship too.
"Love
is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered,
it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with
the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails."
1 Corinthians 13
1 Corinthians 13
I want to be patient as God shows me
who to cultivate relationships with, understanding that my friends are just
people too and I am not the center of their world. I don’t want to envy someone
else’s relationship with them, or brag about our friendship to everyone. I don’t want to build a friendship that is
based on talking behind someone’s back or bashing someone, I don’t want to keep
a record of offenses that person has done to me or delight when bad things
happen that benefit my friendship. I want
to protect, trust and hope for that person.
I need to pray and never fail that person.
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