what are friends for?

i believe God puts information in front of us at the most perfect times. i believe he uses messages from others every day to help us see that we aren't alone. yesterday morning, opie and i didn't make it to church because of annabelle's healing belly button (we didn't want to clothe her and make her ride in her car seat and such with her belly still healing from the granuloma) so, we decided to watch church on t.v. Dr. Charles Stanley was on and was doing a sermon on friendship. oh boy. just what we needed.

in the sermon, Dr. Stanley discussed how our friends will fail us and how in the Bible, paul was failed by his friends on numerous occasions toward the end of his life. the purpose of the sermon was to assure us that even when our friends fail us, God never will. He is always there and always in us if we know Him. it was also a sermon to help us realize what it means to be a christian friend... if we are christians, what kind of friends we should be, and when our friends fail us, as christians we should be forgiving. it doesn't always mean we have to continue putting forth effort for a friendship after we've been hurt, but forgiveness is a key component to the healing process and becoming a good, christian friend.

During the sermon, Dr. Stanley said, "the faithful presence of the Lord will sustain you when others fail you." and man, i needed to hear that. i needed to be reminded that our friends are human and we can't expect to get from them what God can give us. He is the only one that can offer unending, unfailing love and support. when our friends turn their backs on us and walk away because of certain trials, God will still be there. He is perfect. they are not. we can never expect that. but, we can try to set good examples as friends. we can try and try to be the best possible friends we can be and not let our friends down when they need us.

this is where opie and i needed the sermon yesterday. see, for as long as i can remember, opie and i have had so many conversations about how overly caring we are as friends. how sometimes we get hurt because we expect others to give to the relationship as much as we do. and we aren't talking materialistically. i'm not talking money or gifts or who can by who the most things... i'm not talking money. i mean true, genuine caring for another person. thoughtfulness. see, to me and opie, thoughtfulness is the world.

it's nice that we found each other because on the topic of friendship and caring for others, he and i are pretty much the same. we've run into problems with friends before, where we gave and gave (emotionally) and were invested in people and then they didn't do the same things in return. we would get let down and sometimes pretty heartbroken because we expected more. until one night, opie's parents sat us down and had a talk with us. they explained that just because opie and i are a certain way, it doesn't mean that others are that way too. just because we show friendship by thoughtfulness and emotional investment in those people, it doesn't mean that's the way they operate. some people just aren't thoughtful people. people we may consider good friends may only consider us semi-friends. who knows? but, what i do know and what i learned again this weekend is God and family is really all that matters! God's gonna be there. your kids will be there and your spouse and family will be there. no matter what. and that is a beautiful thing!