Friendships

If you’re a Facebook fan, you’ve likely experienced the high of having about a hundred people flood your inbox with friend requests. It seems just about everyone wants to be your friend.  But if you’ve been a Facebook junkie for long, you’ve also probably had the unpleasant experience of logging onto your account and realizing you’ve suddenly gone AWOL on a friend’s account. For most women, this is the nature of friendship: we are friended and unfriended several times over our lifetime. Most friends come into our lives for a season, and though friendships may last for years, few last a lifetime. Friendships are influenced by a lot of factors, some of which can solidify a connection or become its undoing.

Like everything else in life, our friendships are seen through the lens of our unique perspective—our personality, preferences, and past experiences. When choosing friendships, it’s a good idea to go where we are celebrated, not tolerated. If you’ve ever invested significant time struggling to fit in with a particular circle of women, only to find out later you were a better fit with a different group, you know what I mean. Ironically, the very characteristics that drain our tank may be the same characteristics that fill someone else’s.  What I may see as a scatterbrained, someone else may see as free-spirited or I may see someone as direct, while others sees them as rude.  No matter what our perception may be, others may perceive them in a completely different way.  When we’re tempted to define someone in a negative light, it would be good to remind ourselves that our defining characteristics can be viewed as positive or negative too, depending on who is doing the evaluating. Not everyone is suitable to be your friend or you theirs.

All friendships are NOT created equal. Feeling connected is probably one of the most powerful longings, no one wants to feel alone in this world. With that being said, there are friendships that we know are not good for us but we maintain those friendships despite how much they drain us, making ourselves believe that a bad friendship is better than no friendship, or foolishly believing that just because they are not a good friend to you, you can still be one to them,  this is not healthy. Friendships are designed to add more to our lives not diminish us in any way. If you are in a friendship that leaves you feeling drained or like you are not valued you owe it to yourself to make a change. You have to be honest with yourself and ask the hard questions "is it me" or "is it them".  Sometimes we have to lose to win. We all have issues, and if you think yours are sabotaging your relationships, it may be time to work through that and pray for a friend that can help you grow in this area, not keep you there.  Rule of thumb: 'If it doesn't grow you, it needs to go".  

Friendships are important, old and new, and it doesn't matter if they are for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. I know it seems sad to have so many seasonal friends, but that is how life is- seasonal. What we may need during one season of our lives, we may need something or rather someone different during other seasons of our lives. Friendships may end or take on a different shape, but what we learn during that friendship can last a lifetime. 

I believe that God places people in our paths just when we need them. I also believe God places people in our paths when we don't yet realize we need them. There are no mistakes, there is always a plan; a plan to grow us, to use us to help someone else grow, to humble us, to strengthen us. Proverbs 27:17 says " As iron sharpen irons, so one person sharpens another" sounds like friendship to me!