I have a hard time with change, especially the changes within friendships. If I had my way, I would stay in perfect contact with every friend I had ever made in all of my life and we would go way back and have wonderful memories.
But it’s not really that way, is it?
God had it in His plan for me to marry a man whose job would move our family every few years. This means that I am constantly making new friends and saying good-bye to old friends. Some of us talk on the phone, some of us write letters, or talk via Skype but most of our friendships stay connected via FaceBook.
Sure, the advent of FaceBook does make it “easier” to stay in touch but has FaceBook made the eventual death of friendships that much harder to deal with? My In-Laws traveled a very similar path to what DH and I are traveling. They moved from Wausau WI to Portland OR, back to WI, then to Los Angeles, to MN, back to WI, to Chicago and have settled in WI. They still hang on to a few dear couple friends, exchanging Christmas Cards, attending Children’s Weddings, and without FaceBook, holding solid to a friendship separated by miles and miles of land.
Every year, around Christmas time, I begin the job of sending the Christmas Cards and every year I contemplate eliminating some friends from the list. I think about the people I haven’t actually spoken to over the past year or people I hadn’t seen in years and from there it would be logical to eliminate them. But, with FaceBook, I am able to “talk” to people from years past… does that mean that we are still friends?
It’s said that friends can come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime. Maybe we have forgotten that some friendships are destined to run their course and then fade away and that some friendships are meant to be forever. We shouldn’t feel bad that a friendship has ended, that’s just the way it goes. Maybe instead of mourning the loss of the friendship, we should look at how that friendship changed us (hopefully for the better!) Maybe instead of feeling bad because we don’t talk to that person anymore, we should think about the gifts that the person gave to us over the course of their friendship.
My BFF from High School is the Godmother to my DD1. She and I haven’t spoken now in close to a year. She and her family have moved to the border of Nebraska and Wyoming. I couldn’t tell you what’s been going on in her life because I honestly don’t know. And to tell the truth, this is one friendship I just can’t bear to let go, but maybe it is already gone. And I think I know why: She gave me family. Growing up, my home life was rough. Full of strife and tension, alcohol and violence. When I needed a place of refuge, I headed to Lisa’s house. Lisa’s parents were my parents. Her siblings, my siblings. Lisa represented stability in an unstable world. That’s why I can’t bear to let Lisa go.
Reason, Season or Lifetime.
Some friends enter your life for a specific reason. God put them in your life to fulfill some duty and when that duty was done, so were they. Some friends enter your life for a season, it may be high school or college, maybe they were your first work mates or the women with whom you shared a first pregnancy. God put them there for that season and when the season changed, so did the relationship. Other friends are there for a lifetime. But the thing is, with lifetime friends, you won’t know that they are lifetime friends until… well, the end of your life.
Is any one state of friendship better than another?
I don’t think so because every friends that ever came into my life was placed there for a specific purpose. And I know, I needed every type of friend.
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Beautiful and so true. Thanks for this post!