Lasting Friendships

"This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends."~John 15:12-13 NRSV

Gazing out the window, I see my little friend eating the table scraps my husband, Jim, and I have left for him or her to enjoy. My friend is an unusual looking cat, with some Siamese coloration, a small head, and a large body, that lives in the woods behind our home. My heart tells me she is a female, but I really don't know. Last fall she arrived in the backyard looking thin and battered. Many stray cats have come and gone in the years that we've lived here. I'm not sure where they have come from, or where they go to, but I do have this sense of wanting to care for them while they're here. Tonight, she came a little closer as she quickly went for the leftover burger spread out for her to feast upon. It's always a blessing to see that she made it to the food before the raccoons and possums get to it. I'm not sure how long she will be a part of our family, but while she is here, I know I will always cherish caring for and seeing her even from a distance. Our own cat, Rosie, looks out the window wondering what it's like outside, but really has no desire to be out there, because she is loved and has her every need met. Something she never knew about in her first weeks living in a shelter. She wouldn't do anything to risk leaving the people who love her so dearly.

Sometimes in our lives friends come and go while others spend a lifetime with us. I will be honest in saying that sometimes I try to deal with feelings about how could some friends have been such an important part of  my life, and now the friendship has changed due to many different factors some preventable and some for reasons that one has no control over happening.  I can really get hung up on what did I do, what could I have done differently, or what should  I do to help the friendship find its way back to what it once was in my life. In reality, I know that life only moves forward, not backwards. I'm thankful each day for those long time friends that have seen me through the struggles and continue to be there, as I hope I am for them.

Yesterday, Jim, and I, after participating in Bible study at church discussed a point that was brought up in that conversation. Maybe, we often get too hung up in asking the wrong questions. With regards to friends that have come and gone in our lives, instead of asking why the friendship has changed so much, perhaps we should be asking how was our life blessed by the time we spent with those friends? Why not dwell on all the good of what was, rather than mourn what is no longer?  Then each time we think of those friends our response is a loving and uplifting way to think of them rather than a disheartening feeling.

Maybe not all friendships can last forever in the way we wish they could. The forever part of the friendship, may be the treasured memory that a friend or friends brought to a particular time or  moment in our lives. The celebration is in what was shared. Hopefully, they too, fondly remember special times together.  The future may unexpectedly bring us back together, but if not, the memory will always be cherished. Some may argue that friends come into our lives in a kind of random order, but regardless every friend comes into our lives to not only teach us about them, but to teach us to become a better friend.

I think that is why having Jesus as a friend in our lives is so important. He is a constant in our lives. He loves us unconditionally in spite of ourselves.  He is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. It's a friendship that cannot be broken unless we choose to break it. How amazing is His grace? It can't be put into words.

Whether it be the friends that come and go in my life, or the stray cats that come and go in my life, I will learn to ask the bigger question of how they blessed my life rather than dwell on mourning them in the present. And at those moments, when I struggle to focus on the bigger question, I know I can always count on my best friend, Jesus, who loved me yesterday, loves me today, and will love me tomorrow.

Let us pray,
Dearest Jesus,
You came to teach us about the importance of loving each other, setting an example for us in Your unconditional love for each of us. Thank you for the friends that bless our lives if even for a little while and for those that remain with us throughout our lifetime.
Amen