Friends

Friends are a tricky gift; they can encourage and equip you to be a better person than you are or they can shred you to pieces while smiling and saying it is all for your own good or that they need to clear the air.

What I am learning is that solid friends are those who look heavenward with you rather than looking critically at you. If there is a prickly part of you, a friend will love that part of you until the prickly part wears away, and you return the favor when they are prickly.

Friends show one another an unending amount of patience and grace; they truly look for the best outcome for each other. They root one another on when one is succeeding in an area, and they encourage one another when one fails miserably in another. They pray for each other and speak words of encouragement to one another.

It has been said is a friend is a gift you give yourself, but I believe a friend, a really good friend, is nothing short of a gift from the Lord.

Some friendships are for a lifetime, and some friendships are for but a season. Sometimes it is difficult to accept that little nugget of truth. However, people do change over time, and the path the Lord has laid out for each sometimes takes really good friends in opposite directions.

Nonetheless, it is our friends who are the flowers along the paths of life.

Living and learning,
Beth