More on Friends

Friendship is a tricky thing at times. Sometimes we choose our friends, and sometimes they choose us. Usually if both parties are equally interested in one another and like being together the friendship takes off more quickly and lasts longer. But what happens when one party is not as interested in the other, or when someone pursues the relationship more than the other? What should our response be?

I've had some friendships that in my opinion were not mutual, but lately I'm realizing that friendship is not always about balance and reciprocity. If we believe friendship is about serving others and supporting them then we should look less for reciprocity and more for opportunities to serve our friends. Now I'm not saying this is the case with all your friendships across the board, but I am saying that when we experience a relationship that takes up a lot of our time and energy...that's okay.

I have awesome friends. I have friends who have bought me massages and pedicures as pregnancy gifts. I have friends who have thrown me baby showers and brought me magazines and candy when I was sick. I have friends who have given me hundreds of dollars in gift cards disguised in a jar of candy as a gift and friends who take me for sushi and talk for hours. It's easy to love those friends and want to spend all our time with them, but I have to remind myself that the friends who are in hard places or are a little more "needy" are just as deserving of my time and attention (or maybe more so), and if you have friends who give AND friends who need then you don't feel so easily drained.

It can be our natural reaction to ditch friends who are needy or who require more patience and love then we want to give, but with a change of attitude towards them, those friendships can be just as valued. Being a new mom requires me to once again, spend many hours in my house nursing my baby. This can put a serious damper on ones social life if you let it. But this time around I've decided to continue to invest in my friends because I want to, and because I believe God is softening my heart forwards this and giving me the grace I need to put friendship into practice.