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2007

9th July
Smells

2nd July
Smile

26th June
Waterlogged

11th June
Plans

6th June
Letters

21st May
Friends

May 9th
Stereotypes

May 1st
Broken

April 16th
Climbing hills

April 9th
The Three Trees

March 28th
Toby the SuperDog

March 19th
Mountains

March 4th
Lone Daffodil

February 26th
Working hours

February 19th
Memory

February 12th
Piercings

February 5th
Patience

January 29th
Surprise

January 22nd
Wind

January 15th
Honesty

January 8th
My Car

January 3rd
Happy New Year

Friends
21^st May 2007

 How many friends do you have? Is there a single ‘best mate’ or are you surrounded by a posse?

 If I am honest, I use my friendships as a way to boost my self-worth. I recently had a party at which 30 friends (well 29, as there was this random girl I’d never met) attended. I could not only get thirty people to come to my house for a bit of a bash, but they came from as far away as Glasgow, London and Cardiff. To see all these people, these friends, getting together and having fun because I invited them to, makes me feel pretty good. In fact it makes me feel great! I get to see that I have a lot of friends, and so therefore by logical reason, I must be an ok person – if these people like me enough to travel to see me I can’t be that horrid!

 So, on a high of being the popular party hostess I go onto my new obsession that is ‘facebook’. Here people get to write a little profile, put up pictures and then make friends with people you haven’t seen in a while, as well as those down your street. All this from the comfort of your own home, and quite often in pyjamas! Since joining facebook I have got in touch with a guy I went to school with and haven’t seen since 1997, a girl I went to MAYC London Weekend with in 1995 and some of the guys who used to come to youth club. I love it and am totally addicted to it. I have, at this present moment, a total of 49 friends, which I consider to be not too shameful. Then I look at my friend’s friends and see that she has over 300! What! How can anyone be that popular? 49 is rubbish, how come I don’t have as many mates as she does? Why am I so unpopular????!!!

 As I sit and mope about my lackage of friends, I start to cough. I was off work last week with a high temperature, throat infection (yes, I lost my voice again!) and a chest infection. I spent a lot of time moving from my bed to the sofa and back again. But now that I have a dog there is the responsibility of taking him out for walks. This wasn’t really top of my priorities when I felt like poo and wanted to just curl up and sleep. The fact that the whole week it rained didn’t really aid the situation. This is where my lovely friends stepped in – a few, quality friends took Toby out in the rain on more than one occasion, so that I could rest and stay dry. I didn’t have 300 people offering to do this, not even 49 folk stepped forward, just 3 good friends who put my need for rest above their desire to stay dry. When it came to the crunch, when I needed help, it was only a few that I could truly depend upon.

 Now I don’t want to offend anyone and those living further away than Wakefield would struggle to support me by walking the dog when I’m ill. But it showed me that there are friends and then there are friends. There are people who we know and like, who we spend time with and enjoy hanging out with. Then there are those people who have seen us when we are a mess, when we’ve snot coming out of our nose from crying so much, and when we show our least attractive selves; people who know our bad points and our shortfalls as well as our hopes and dreams; people who encourage us and rejoice with our successes, and who stick with us to pick up the pieces when we get it wrong. These are true friends, quality friends and the stuff of ‘best friends’ if you go in for that. These are a precious gift from God.

 So as I receive my gift of friendship from God, from those around me whom I consider to be friends of real value, I wonder how good I am at being the gift. I am quite happy to be on the receiving end of good friendships, to have people help me when I need it, to accept encouragement and support, to hang out and have a laugh with my mates, but how good am I at giving back? If God provides friends around us then he must logically provide us to be friends around others. Therefore I am expected to be doing all that encouraging and supporting, listening and caring, helping and loving right back at them, and to others too.

 A great guy told us to love people how we would want to be loved. In reality I can’t do that in depth loving stuff for everyone I meet – there’s not enough time in the day, but what I can do is to try and be the best friend I possibly can to a small number of people. That doesn’t negate the need for our other friendships (in which we should also be loving and kind) be they 300 or 49 in number, but it gives me the opportunity to try to get closer to the kind of love that is described in 1 Corinthians verse 13. (Put your own name in place of the word love and reread it – is that an accurate description?) I want to have the kind of love and friendship that puts other’s needs first, that means I get wet walking their dog when they’re sick, that is willing to travel the distance to support them as well as to celebrate with them, that cries with them as well as laughing with them. I want to be the kind of friend that Jesus is.

 So as I avidly check out my friends on facebook I thank God for those whom I count as invaluable and I try to give back to them all that they’ve given to me. Oh and if you’re not already a member I urge you to join facebook so I can boost my number of friends!