Due to Covid-19 and the announcement from our government officials, all church service gatherings will be postponed till a later date.

Is God Your Best Friend? Part 1

Friends are important in our life, but sometimes we don’t think about friendships. Sometimes we think we can get along without other people in our lives, but that’s not true. I have several friends, and each one serves a different place in my heart and life.

As I’m writing this article, I’m reminded of a friend I had in my life several years ago. I bonded with a woman who attended the same church as I. One day I shared with her, “If ever you decide that you don’t want this friendship, let me know.” Several months after that, she came up to me said, “Gail, I don’t want to be friends with you anymore.” Our family had just settled into a new town and new church that both our families attended, so you can imagine the pain that I felt in my heart. She made that announcement just before Sunday morning service. I looked at her with a straight face and told her, “I gave you that right to leave this friendship. Thank you for telling me.”

That might seem like a weird way to build a friendship, but I don’t want my friends feeling like they’re locked in this friendship forever. Healthy friendship building is allowing give-and-take. It’s built on trust, built on a relationship, built over time, built on you being who you are without hypocrisy. That day I sat in the Sunday morning service with my heart broken, but I made it through the service beautifully. When I got home I broke down and cried for days. I felt like the children’s nursery rhyme: “Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men could not put Humpty together again.”

Maybe you’ve never had a friend who walked out of your life when you thought the relationship was going fine. I’m here to tell you it’s a very painful experience. I remember my husband trying to console me, but the tears would not stop nor the pain in my heart go away. My husband is a wise man and I remember him saying to me, “Gail, you can’t own all the fault. You can’t say ‘what did I do’, or ‘what did I not do’, or ‘what did I say’, or ‘what did I not say.’ ” For weeks I played everything he told me over and over again in my head.

Another thing I remember my husband saying to me, “Everybody has a story.” We don’t know everyone’s story because we don’t see into their lives. We look at people we know and think we know them, but we don’t. As people we all put up façades. We can look happy on the outside and be devastated on the inside. We can put on a happy face and feel like we want to commit suicide.

“A man who has friends must himself be friendly, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.” Prov. 18:24 NKJV (to be continued)