Forever Friends

If friendship is based on what your friend can do for you is, at best, a temporary relationship. Thus, you must call it something else. True friendship carries with it a strong desire for the well belong of another.  A true friend looks for ways to lighten the load of another. True friendship is a giving, not a taking relationship. Genuine friendship ignores the calendar and knows no distance. 

A true friend cares for and believes in another - regardless of circumstances. What separates acquaintances, will only brings friends closer together. To use the words of a sacred song, friendship, ".... looks beyond our faults and sees our needs."

I remember distinctly a song that was sang on the last Sunday of one our pastoral assignments, 

"Friends are friends forever 
If the Lord's the Lord of them,
And a friend will not say "Never"
Cause the welcome will not end,
Though it's hard to let you go
In the Father's hands we know,
That a lifetime's not too long
To live as friends."

Though my heart was breaking at that moment of separation, I have learned that no truer words were ever spoken. In Christ, we have a Friend that is "closer than a brother." Our bond through Christ most certainly extends to our earthly relationships. 

On a final note let share this point of inspiration: Friendships are the roots for a strong tree that resists, and survives the storms of life. It bears sweet smelling blossoms, which produces the delicious fruit of Hope and Healing and Life. 

I give thanks today for Forever Friends.