Monday's Musings

Friendships.  That's what I've been thinking about these last couple of days.  It's an area that for me has often been up and down. Early on in our marriage, my husband and I had some fairly close friends, but never did we have lots of close friends.  But for us it was the quality of friends that we had in our lives that was more important.  Having moved into this community, we did not have friends that were from our "growing up years" and so coming into a close knit community, we found it difficult to connect with those around us because they all had family/life long friends that they would get together with.  It is unreal though, how so many of those incredibly close friendships that we did end up making, ended with those friends moving away. Time after time, we would finally connect with another couple, and after a few years, God called them somewhere else. It was difficult.  We would finally find a couple we could really connect with and who made us a priority and they would end up moving away.  So many times this would happen, and each time it did, it made us pull back from people just a little more. And over the years, I know that we had built a wall around us.  As the years have passed, we've realized how much we have pulled away from those around us and how lonely life was becoming at times.  I've also realized that there were many people out there who were just as lonely as I was.

Over the past couple of years, thankfully God has brought several people into our lives who we now consider our dear friends.  I know in the past, I was waiting for others to connect with me.  I wanted THEM to make the first move.  I kind of felt like this was THEIR town so why should I have to make the first move. But that mentality left me empty and alone.  Over the years, God has prompted me and reminded me that to have a friend you have to be a friend.  That regardless of whether or not other people have closer friends, God has just called me to show His love.  He calls me to love others, and that includes those around me. God calls me to look at the interest of others rather than that of my own.  (HEY!  I think those were the verses I memorized a couple of weeks ago.  Tuesdays memorizing passage )

I am so thankful for the friends that God has brought into my life.  I am thankful for the friendships that our children have forged with other solid Christian children.  I am thankful for the friendship that even though they have moved away, that despite time and distance, our friendships still stand.  I am thankful for the friends that have stood beside us through difficult times and prayed for us through those times.  I am thankful for the guidance our friends have given us.  I'm thankful for the times when our friends have said the difficult things that we needed to hear despite what we might feel.  I am thankful for renewed friendships that God has allowed us to reconnect with.  I am thankful for new friends.

More than ever, I am realizing that when I open up my heart to share God's love to others, and when I open up my heart to be loved by others, that's when friendships are grown.  That's when God's love can flow.  That is when I am blessed by others, and I can begin to see all the blessings that God has placed right in front of me.

Truly, friendships are a gift from God - one I am incredibly thankful for!!!

So to those who I am proud to call my friends, just know I am blessed by you and honored to call you my friend!!!