Friend

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Friend

Sometimes I wish I had one of those movie best friends. You know. The one that I would talk to every day and share my deepest hurts and feelings and dreams and yearnings. The one that would drop everything and come to my house/apartment and listen intently while sipping wine and eating take-out. The one that finishes my sentences and confides secrets and always always always takes my side in every conflict.

But I know that I can be pretty intense as friends go. I talk so long, I manipulate the conversation, I try to make sure I get all my thoughts in, that sometimes those friends don’t talk to me for weeks, months, years … ever again.

So, when my brain gets on that train, I stop myself, and ask God what needs to happen.

And He reminds me that Jesus is my Friend. I can tell Him anything and no one will ever know. He keeps all my secrets. He listens, knowing I love the person I’m complaining about, I just don’t know how to be a friend to them.

There are lots of people I can call ‘friend.’ Some of them might not even know that I call them friend, but I do because I believe I can trust them with a small sharing, with a prayer request, with a tiny secret.

Now, when I say secret, I mean something I believe that might offend someone else, some opinion that others might not agree with, some goal that others don’t understand. The big secrets – the personal ones I don’t want anyone to know, the bad things my friends may have done, the tiny fact that might bring down someone’s life – those secrets I tell no one. I learned my lesson long ago. The explosion was so large it took a year to just recuperate from the blast. I’m still recuperating from that fallout.

I think a best friend is very rare. I used to think a person would know when they found their best friend, but I’m not sure it happens all that fast. There are people I’ve known from grade school and high school that still communicate with me. This is huge. All the bad stuff I’ve done and all the issues I’ve had and all the disappearing I’ve done, and they still talk to me?

That’s a friend.

I married my best friend, one who got me through bad times, embarrassing times. He knows everything, or just about everything about me, and yet he still stays with me. He has hurt me deeply, but I have learned to forgive him. I have hurt him deeply as well, and I trust that he has forgiven me. It’s a lot of heart work. I’m not good at heart work. I don’t enjoy doing heart work. But God helps me.

 In the end, my Very Best Friend is Jesus. I can tell Him anything and He doesn’t share that information with anyone, unless it will work out for my good. He tells me the truth about myself, but in a way that is gentle, slow, asking me to take baby steps. He knows what I can handle and doesn’t ask too much of me. And He always listens.

Thank You, Jesus, for being my Friend and setting the very best example of what a Friend should be.

_ RHTM _