My feelings come and go when concerning people who I call friends. Friendships can be painful, rewarding, and sometimes elicit every kind of emotion mixed into one. I am extremely picky when it comes to choosing my friends. Many people I know are acquaintances or even friends I know and I talk to – but aren’t in-depth, truthful, honest and dependable “best friends.”
It might sound harsh in saying this, but I think most of us relate to those assessment times when we look at a relationship and ask if we’re really friends at all, or good friends or possibly even best friends. We all have family, we all have acquaintances, but we also all have that “short list” of people we call friends. For me, it’s a very short list.
Now that list can shift or change depending on circumstances that happen in our lives such as graduating college, getting married, having kids, or moving away. I must say these life transitions are hard times for me, as it’s always hard to let go of friendships. These are people I care about that I have invested in, that I have developed a bond with over the years. It’s hard when something big happens and it’s just over. Since it’s hard for me, it also feel weird when it seem simple to others. It’s hard to grasp and understand how some are able to just adapt and change – and walk away.
I put a lot of pressure on myself when I invest in a friendship and to see it crumble breaks my heart, makes me want to cry, infuriates me and makes me not want to forget the friends who have cared about me, valued me, and strived to make me better. Henry Cloud, a renowned author said it best: “Everything has seasons, and we have to be able to recognize when something’s (someone’s) time has passed and be able to move on and into the next season. Everything that is alive requires pruning as well, which is a great metaphor for endings.”
These words by Cloud hit home. Endings are going to occur, things are going to evolve, even relationships: friendships and acquaintances are going to change but it’s how we interpret, deal with, and move past those changes that will be a key factor in how it develops us and grows us into a better and stronger person.
We all desire friendships, community, and companionship and GOD created us for just that. But He also set some things to be here for a season and a purpose. In Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 God shows us that in all aspects of our life there will be change. He has given us gifts in our friends, roommates, significant others, children. Yet this revolving door is present and always shaking life up: as one person steps out another steps in but their is a constant person that we need to cling to.
There is a friend we forget and it’s Jesus. Jesus reminds us that He himself will never change. “Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). He is all we absolutely need, He is all we should desire and through Him comes all other good things. He is the only thing that in unchanging and never revolving in or out of our lives.
Jesus is the one constant friend we always have no matter the good times or bad times. How we forget this, how we forget him when it feels like we can’t deal with other changes in our lives. Jesus is the consistent friend we should all desire – the anchor in the tempest of life.
We should and need to refer to him as our friend because he is the one who cares for us most, wants what’s best for us always. He will never let us down and will always be there to comfort us and pick us back up when we need someone. So when you feel like life’s changes are too much and there’s so much craziness going on with all the changes – look to Him because that revolving door may be going around but Jesus is the one true friend who is right beside you through it all!
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