Friends

Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art.... It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival. ~C.S. Lewis

I have got to be one of the most blessed people on earth when it comes to friends.

Starting with my best friend: my husband Joel. Joel is one of the funnest people I know (is that a word?). His sense of humour and his energy are what first drew me to him, okay, and maybe how he looked in uniform :) Seriously, I know how fortunate I am to have a husband that I can have so much fun with. He has one of the most caring hearts of any person I know, and he isn't afraid to tell me that he loves me. I see the same characteristics in my son Obi. I pray that he turns out just like his dad. At four years old, Obi still loves to snuggle his mama. I know this is going to change and we'll have some stressful years, but if he loves me as an adult the way Joel loves his mom, I'll be happy :)

Then there are my girlfriends. I honestly don't think that I would be able to make it through life (sanely) without my girlfriends. There is something so special about the ability to vent and cry with a girlfriend that you feel safe with; that's not going to think you've gone psycho. The complexity of the woman's heart takes another woman to completely understand and accept it (besides God of course, who actually created me to be this complex!).

Having good friends takes effort. For any of you out there that feel like you don't have any really good friends, I challenge you to make the effort to create some good friendships. Back in September of last year I didn't feel like I had any friends that I would be able to call if I was really in distress. Not that I didn't have friends back then, but maybe we hadn't been in contact much, I had let some of those friendships slide in the busyness of life. Since then, I have made a deliberate effort to cultivate friendships in my life. I could list off several names of people that I feel I could talk to (besides Joel) if I needed someone to talk to.

One of the things that I've learned is that being a good friend means really listening to people. There is nothing worse than telling someone about something happening in your life only to have them twist the conversation to the things happening in their own lives. Listening takes work! I have always got a hundred things flying through my head at any given moment, so to really take in what people are saying I have to focus on that! God has really helped me to develop the ability to listen, and I've seen how appreciative people are when I just listen and care about what they are saying. It's true what the happiness scale said about helping others; when you take the focus off yourself and help others, it makes you happy as well.

So I challenge you all to really listen to people when they talk to you. Make the effort to keep your friendships alive. Send a friend a note about how much you appreciate them (I've been on the sending and receiving end of this one in the last week and MAN, does it feel great!), phone a friend that you haven't talked to in a while and ask how they are doing. Make a meal for a friend who is going through a difficult time in their life. Don't ignore those promptings that you feel inside to help others.
Just invest in a friend...it's worth it. Besides the blessing of family, there's nothing else on earth quite as rewarding as good friends.

Mel