Thirty-four years ago, a young gal came to me and asked me, "Will you be my friend?" At the time, I had great misgivings about this girl. She was not the kind of person I would have chosen to befriend. (Mind you, I was not a Christian.) I didn't think she had the "staying-power" to be a friend. I figured she would bend at the first sign of wind, then break in the midst of a storm. This is what I told her:
"I don't know. You see, I place a very very high value on friendship. I do not enter into a relationship with a person expecting them to be anything other than a friend. Being a friend takes work; and the highest quality of a friend is trust."
To that she said, she could be trusted.
"I hope you know what you are saying. Because friends don't just trust friends with their private thoughts and expect they will not be repeated. Friends trust their very heart and life to others."
I do not know where I came to understand that idea of trust or friendship, it may have been because so many people in my life had proved to be untrustworthy and I had found at the early age of 25 that trust is a high-priced commodity in one's heart. The price one pays is as high as the other side of betrayal. Should we venture into any relationship, we are apt to have our loyalty tested, our reasoning questioned and our hearts broken. So we must realize that from the beginning of a friendship. Then we must ask ourselves if we are willing to do what it takes, go the extra mile--and beyond--to reach the other side of true friendship.
I explained this to the gal who sought my friendship and told her to go home and think about it all. If she thought that was something she wanted from a friend, then I'd be willing to be her friend. I knew it would be an unconditional thing, on my part. You love because you love, not because the other loves. I told her that there would be times when I was not all she needed of me. There would be times I would not meet her expectations. There would be times I would fail to be the friend she wanted because I would be weak and without any strength to be the friend I should be.
I told her that there would be times of silence between us and though there was silence in the conversation of things, that the lull in the conversation did not mean we were no longer friends. I told her that there would be times that we would be challenged to confront each other with the unaltered, naked truth of our emotions and we must be brave enough to face each other and be all we needed to be in that moment. I told her we would hurt each other because of our ignorance of each other, but would not want to hurt each other in the knowledge of each other.
And we became friends.
I don't think I would have had that much wisdom on friendship at age 25:-)
Posted by: Vicki | November 28, 2007 at 11:40 AM