Friendship is such an amazing thing. Such a beautiful treasure.
This is something that I've only come to understand in the last few months. To feel the love that is friendship towards another human being who you have no reason to love. To feel so excited about spending time with someone who may not even have any shared interests. To yearn for the company of such people who you would previously not even have given a second glance.
I love my friends, just as I love my family.
There is an old saying, "you can choose your friends but you can't choose your family". Well I would refute this. I didn't choose my friends, God chose you to be my friends.
These feelings of unbounded love, that I am only now beginning to understand, have become a part of me because I am filled with the Holy Spirit. Love is the first fruit of the Spirit and as any Spirit filled person knows, when God's Spirit is at work in a person, amazing things happen. The person's whole life blossoms and bears beautiful fruit. And the most wonderful fruit of all is the giving and receiving of love.
This was particularly in evidence in the Moravian community when in 1727 following what was described as a Pentacostal outpouring of the Spirit “their hearts were set on fire with new faith and love towards the Saviour and likewise with burning love towards one another".
Before finding my faith, I used to be under the sad, misguided illusion that I didn't need any more friends, I had all the friends I needed.
Actually, I didn't have many real friends at all. The only friend I had who really knew me was my dear friend Sophie whom I had almost lost due to my attempts to keep her from knowing the kind of person I had become.
Sophie had known me for 28 years and had seen me at my best and at my worst. She knew everything about me, or so she thought. When I eventually revealed to her my life of lies and deception it did at least go some way to explaining my reasons for alienating her from various parts of my life. I couldn't risk her blowing my cover. She knew the real me, before I had become so distorted and disfigured from the inside that I was barely recognisable as the same girl whom she met at Dover Grammar School for Girls in 1986.
I had truly become an expert social fraudster, devious to the last. I had even given up alcohol mainly to prevent any loss of face incase I was to make a mistake with my complex interwoven life stories.
Throughout my childhood, teenage years and early adult life I had often felt seriously let down by my so called friends. Although I would never have considered this at the time, it wasn't that they didn't care about me, just that their very human nature was selfish, as was my own.
I found that the only friends I could rely on were those inside my own head, the ones no one else could see. They were different from the rest, you could trust them. This was real friendship. I used to consider myself lucky; chosen even; to have such friends.
When I began to realise that these unseen friends were actually exerting substantial control over my life I created a whole new set of imaginary buddies whom I could control. They were my creation, I could do exactly what I wanted with them. I started to feel invincible. I could discuss anything with them, fight with them, kiss them, even kill them off as the mood took me.
But then life started to become seriously complicated. There were my school friends, my unseen friends and my newly created virtual friends. If I wasn't crazy already then this was seriously enough to push me over the edge.
When I look back at the years of confusion, emotional instability and loneliness that was my life I am eternally thankful for at last finding the best of all friends.
To have a friend in Jesus is the most amazing thing, the most wonderful feeling, because He won't let you down, not ever. "He will never leave you nor forsake you." Deuteronomy 31:6
Dear Lord Jesus,
Thank you for always being there for me. Even when I did not know you, you were there. Even when I turned towards everything that is evil and away from everything that is good, you waited for me. You never left me.
In times when I was far from you, you were by my side. When I cried out in vain, or so I thought, you wiped away my tears. When I showed no respect for my life you snatched me from death's dark vale.
You waited patiently for me to invite you into my life. You spent time with me so that I might know you, through your Holy Spirit you taught me how to recognise your voice, through your Word you gave me wisdom and understanding. And you are still doing all these things for I am, and always will be, a work in progress and for this I am thankful. I rejoice in your Name, I praise and worship you and thank you for being my friend.
In your Holy Name I pray,
Amen
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