Real Friendship

"A friend loves at all times,
and a brother is born for adversity. "
Proverbs 17:17

Let's face it ~ friendship is hard. Real friendship is hard anyway. We all have "friends" that are there to help make the day a little brighter. Friends that are we can have lunch with or go to a movie with. Conversations filled with small talk about the family or things going on in your life. The little stuff. . .

What about the big stuff? Who can you cry to when feel your world shifting? When marriages fail and you just need a tub of chocolate ice cream and a shoulder to cry? Or when you are up all night with a sick child and your other children need clean clothes? What about when you are watching a parent suffer from cancer? Those big things that are thrown at us in this life. Those moments when we are not our pleasant selves with a smile for everything. Those moment when we are angry and hurt and vulnerable. Those moments we don't want anyone to see. Who do you call? Who do you allow to see you like that? Your real friends. Those are the people that are allowed to see behind your mask.

It is hard. No one said that it would be easy. A friend ~ a real friend ~ loves at all times. Through the good times and the bad. This reminds me of marriage. Making it through the wedding and honeymoon are the easy part! It is all of those moments after that which really matter. Friends love us through those happy moments and the other ones as well. They become our family ~ our brothers or sisters. Sometimes more than our own flesh and blood family. Real friends are there through the adversity. God sends them to us to walk beside us through the flames. To sit on their knees and pray with us. To pray for us when we cannot find the words. True friendship . . . real friendship is so valuable. To have a friend such as that, we first must be a friend like that. We also must open ourselves to others to allow them that chance. Real friendship is a blessing we must never take for granted.

"Friendship... is not something you learn in school. But if you haven't
learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven't learned anything."
Muhammad Ali