Friends

My column is not coming together this week.  I am with my high school friends and everyone is laughing uncontrollably.  It is hard for me to focus.  The reality of it all though is that friendships are great!  

I rode around with my daughter with her best friend, BFF, last night.  My Mother never allowed me to say best friend, because it could hurt someone’s feelings.  I encourage my kids to refrain from using it as well.  However, these two are truly close, like sisters, and they are best buddies.  Even on the 4 wheelers, they took turns on who would go first.  One of them took the lead and then the other one did.  There was no fighting over who would go first and when.  

I am blessed to say I have several really good friends.  The group I was with last night I have known my whole life, like literally as long as I can remember.  I also have a new, but equally dear friend that I met in my thirties.  I have a few friends that are my accountability partners without even knowing it.  They keep me on the right track.  Most of my friends and I are different. You do not have to think the same, act the same, or even remotely have the same personality.  In fact, I appreciate it when my friends are really strong in an area that I am lacking in.  We help each other, we complement each other.  We do life together!  

About last night… It was nothing short of a miracle and a sign of true friendship when we turned on the Presidential Debate and were able to nicely and logically discuss our very differing opinions.  While enjoying my third slice of strawberry cake, I voiced my thoughts.  I know my friends may vote very differently than I will next month, but that does not matter. We respect and love each other no matter what.  (However, I do think I am RIGHT!)  Our group covered marriage, divorce, kids, religion, politics, the past, and the future all with ease.  That is friendship!

Watching my daughter and her BFF jumping carelessly on the trampoline Saturday then hanging out with a group of my girlfriends last night make me think of an old Michael W. Smith song.  The chorus goes like this:

“Friends are friends forever if the Lord is the Lord of them.  And a friend will not say never, cause the welcome will not end.  Though it’s hard to let you go, in the Father’s hands we know, that a lifetime’s not too long to live as friends.”  

This song is about departing from each other.  It was hugely popular at church camps years ago.  You obviously make new friends at church camp, become close, pack up, go home, and leave them at the end of the week. I remember one friend I met in 3rd grade from Jasper.  I loved her!  She loved me.  We said goodbye at the end of the week, but never really said goodbye.  We reconnected when she met some Fairfield girls at Tech.  I ran into her a few years ago at Luckenbach. It was the first time I had seen her in person since 3rd grade.  How special it was to reunite with her after all of the years.

The words of the song are true.  Friends are friends forever if the Lord is the Lord of them.  You can have a BFF, BEST FRIEND FOREVER, if you both have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.  You will spend eternity with them forever.  Love your friends, hang out with your friends, old and new, but most of all…Love them enough to be a light and to share Jesus with them.