The Joy of Real Friendship
The dictionary describes the word friend as thus:
A person whom one knows, likes, and trust; One who supports, sympathizes with, a person whom one knows and with whom one has a bond of mutual affection, typically exclusive of sexual or family relations.
A friend is someone who accepts you at your worst and at your best. With all your warts, wrinkles, weights, and flaws exposed, they remain true. When you are at your lowest there is nothing better than a girlfriend. One that will listen to you cry or complain, about her husband, her children, her life, without judgment. After you’re ranting and raving she will do her best to cheer you up, and point out the good attributes of your husband, children, and life without sounding pious.
Through the ages all women have been born with the need to bond with other women on a deeper level, like their mothers, their grandmothers, their sisters, aunts, cousins, daughters and other significant women in their life. Sometimes you’re closer to a friend then you are to a relative because they are more objective and can see the picture more clearly. This bond has run deep and strong throughout the centuries, and we have known, without a doubt, that we are women of great value in the world.
A friend is a friend not because of a woman’s movement, or wearing a body part on your head to make a statement. She is a friend because she shares and innate bond that is undefinable, and unbreakable with you.
Friends have always been there for each other, since the beginning of time to help each other birth their children, to help gather and store food, always thinking of helping each other, and for the good of the family. During each and every war that this country has faced, the women have played an integral part in sustaining life both on and off the battlefield, and keeping the country together both in body and spirit.
Some time ago I had a friend call me out of the blue, as we had not spoken in years, I was a bit surprised. I don’t know if her tears were caused by her anger, her shock, or the hurt she was going through, but she knew she could call me and depend on me to help her through her tough time, even though many years had passed since we last spoke. That is basically the definition of a friend. It is not something that waxes and wanes when the times are good and bad, but it is constant and strong. Out of all the friends she’s made over her lifetime, I had to wonder why she called me. It is my fervent hope that she called me because she knew I am Christian, and I may have some answers for her during her troubled times. Through much laughter and many tears, she made it through her hard times and is now living a very happy life, and I am still honored to call her my friend even though many years have passed since that time.
It does not take a woman’s movement in any town or state to bond me to another woman, in the name of friendship. Banding together for the rights of women, to have control over their own reproductive organs, (as they like to put it), is yet another desperate effort to ban people together on a visceral level. True bond of friendship isn’t based on the hysteria of the day, but on a kinship that is made and has been tested through time, and has come through the flames of fire and come out purer, and indelible.
As parents it is important for us to teach our children what true friendship is, not necessarily what they think it should be. One of my favorite songs is: What a friend we have in Jesus. In the song it tells us that he will carry all our sins, troubles, and grief, and he will remain true and faithful to us. That is the example of what a true friend is and what we must teach our children. You cannot come home and talk trash behind your friends back and teach your children what a true friend is, as I have said over and over, we teach by example. Does anyone call you a true friend?
We as authors, have always had some type of friendship with the main character of our writings. It is usually an unsung hero that helps the main character get through hard times and then celebrate with her during the good times. Let us hope that our writings can be an example of what a true friendship is even if we get our feelings hurt sometimes, our friendship should always come out on top. The bond between women is made of truly indelible stuff! I thank God for the people in my life I can call my friends.
Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies.
Proverbs 31:10
A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.
Proverbs 17:17
And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it.
I Corinthians 12:26
This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.
Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
John 15:12
Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour.
For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up.
Ecclesiastes 4: 9-10
Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as also ye do.
I Thessalonians 5:11
Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep.
Romans 12:15
The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things;
That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children,
Titus 2:3-4