Friendships. Super easy, right? Always fun to hang out, you love
the same things, laughing out loud, inside jokes, sharing your heart, a
tear or two....
What about AFTER all of that?! What
happens when you realize you really aren't alike in EVERY way, or you
feel like your way of communicating is extremely different than theirs.
Maybe you've realized they aren't perfect (oh, no!) and they realized
you're not either (who, me?!) Jealousy, insecurities, offense and lack
of communication, oh my!
Over the past 6 years I've
learned that just because I once had a fantastic,
want-to-always-hang-out, great conversations-ALL-the-time friendship,
this does NOT mean that it will always be so easy or fun or even
continue on. Man, was that a hard lesson to learn...and it took a few
friends to realize this.
Once the honeymoon phase of a
friendship is over, you have a choice. You can drop it likes it's hot
and move on to the next honeymoon (YOU LITTLE HUSSY!) or you can stand
up to the challenge and fight for your friendship to take on the next
level.
Now, I'm not here trying to say we should all be
friends with each other. I believe you can love people without having
to be their BFF. But if you once had something great, why let that go?
Be honest with yourself and ask, is it really worth it to ignore or
just forget a really love(er)ly thing because it's getting difficult?!
Ha!
If we treated all relationships like this, marriages would be a joke!
We'd all be getting married, then divorced and married and divorced
and..oh, wait. Insert statistics here.
I
know I'm not alone because I've had this conversation with other people
and there are girls who.are.hurting. or have.been.hurt. Actually, I've
been writing this blog post for over a month and God keeps on
challenging me through this with my own relationships. I couldn't write
this without challenging myself as well...
Anywho, here's some responses from other girls who I have talked with
Andy
(who is not a girl, but I thought I'd share his response): "Girls are
just weird. Guys do not deal with that kind of thing." <---true
dat.
Friend #1: "It's like after a year, the friendships die out." WORD.
Friend
#2: "That's when the honeymoon phase is over and it starts to take a
lot more work. It takes both parties to initiate hanging out or you'll
move on to new friends and the cycle repeats." Yee-ep!
Wow.
God had my attention and I needed to think about all of my friendships
and why some are still going strong and why others were not so much.
THEN the next day, I came across this how-to on Pinterest and then started poking around her blog and found this
on friendship...ah-mazing. Please read. It's not directly related to
this, but as you can see, she challenges herself and is blessed by doing
so!
How do we fix this?! There are far too many
fantastic friendships out there with special woman who have a lot to
offer (and so do you!) but because something rocked your "friendship
boat", you let it fall to the wayside. You give up and try and fill
that void with another friend.
But, is that okay? Is
it best to just say, "Well, that's just how it is. People change. I'm
fine. I've got other people who are more invested so I'm not going to
waste my time and heart on her."
I don't think so. I
believe that friendships are worth fighting for. I believe that when
that bump comes along, you confront it and communicate what you are
feeling...TRULY feeling (anger, sadness, jealousy, offense) and talk or
cry it out. Your true feelings will come out eventually, so why not do
it in a humble but honest way?
We are so afraid to tell
friends our insecurities that come out when we've been hurt or
offended. People, we are HUMAN! We fail to communicate perfectly, we
hurt and get hurt, we offend and get offended. Take that in, breathe
that in because when you do, you'll accept it for yourself and you'll
accept it for your friends. With that, you'll see the beauty of what
will come out of it.
There comes a time when you've
done your part and they refuse to fight for your friendship with you and
you have to accept that there's no more to do. (begging is kinda
awkward) ;) But let it go in love and prayer and hope! Pray for your
enemies, God says. I believe He says that in a way to challenge the one
hurt to come to a place of love for their enemy.
I'm
telling you, my closest friends are the ones who I can be honest
with...they are the ones I can go to when I'm happy, sad and angry.
But, I can have a good time with them, too! Ya see, "having fun" is no
longer the only thing we have, anymore. There's a real depth. A
beautiful, honest, accept-me-for-my-imperfect-self and I'll do the
same, depth.
Who can you go to and share your heart
with and in return possibly mend a beautiful friendship? I challenge
you to pray tonight and ask God to search your heart for either a friend
who you let fall to the wayside because you didn't fight for it, or a
friend who has hurt you and you're keeping the peace and not pushing
through for true intimacy in a friendship.
Recap :
If you've been hurt, go to your friend in love. Pray for them and see how God works!
If
you find yourself escaping a relationship because it's starting to
become complicated or hard, please push through. If you always escape,
you'll try and heal any hurt or cure any frustrations by going on to the
next friendship only to ever know the honeymoon phase. You're missing
out! Pushing through and striving for a mended, beautiful and redeemed
friendship is the best kind!
*Acceptance is the
universal currency of real friendship...It does not warp or shape or
wrench a person to be anything other than what they are.
~Joan Chittister
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