The Beauty of Friendship

Friendship has been on my mind a lot lately.  I love friendship and I value friendship, but I think at times we do not function with a correct understanding of friendship.  For example, according to Facebook I have 1,298 friends.  Interesting.  I looked at that number and thought how many of those 1,298 "friends" have I talked to this past month.  My guess is less than 1/3 of them.  I think social media is a great thing, it allows us to keep up with people who we do not see that often.  I get that.  

I looked up the definition of friendship and here are two of them.  

1. the state of being a friend; association as friends

2. a friendly relation or intimacy

I find that second one the most interesting.  A friendly relation or intimacy.  How well do I know my friends?  Do I know what upsets them, what makes them sad, what makes them happy?  Do I know what they struggle with and how I can better pray for them?  I have been very convicted of this lately.  I want to know my friends.  I do not just want to know the obvious things about them but the things that make them who they are.  I want to know what ways I can encourage them and be there for them.  

One of my friends asked me a question yesterday and I had never been so thankful for a text.  This friend thought she had done something to offend me.  Her text said she wanted to get together to talk and rectify the situation if there had been something that was done.  At first, I felt so bad that she would have even thought that.  She had done nothing wrong and I felt so bad that she was even questioning herself.  I then became very thankful.  I realized that lots of people would do one of two things.  Many of us might go and talk to other people about it to try and figure it out on our own or make the situation worse and others of us may just have bottled up those fears and never said anything.  

I want to thank that friend for just asking.  I'm so thankful to have friends that want to address situations when they are there and find ways to remedy those situations.  No, there was nothing wrong or an offense made but it is important that we can feel open enough with our friends to ask those tough questions.