It's interesting how even at the old age of 38yrs, I'm still learning about this world around me. I'm still learning about people and how they function. Sometimes the knowledge I gain is wonderful and uplifting, and other times it's just not.
Recently, I've come to an understanding about friendships. Some friendships are meant to be forever...meant to be eternal. I wouldn't be surprised if some friendships we have now began in the pre-existence, where we bonded together, hoping we'd see each other again in our Father's presence.
Then there are other type of friendships. In looking back on life, staring with my childhood, I am beginning to see sometimes friendships are just convenient. Sometimes friendships are beneficial to one side or the other. And sometimes friendships just don't seem worth fighting for, which is hard when you might be the one on the other side of that friendship.
There are several situations that I've experienced where, now looking back, I wonder why I "endured" it. Why did I allow the supposed "friendship" to last as long as it did? I don't have an answer...at least not right now. But I feel I've wasted a lot of time in several of these type of friendships.
A lot of my high school friendships were definitely only skin deep. Nothing that lasted too long because, let's face it, at that age there's too much selfishness. It's hard to stop and think about the other person in the friendship and what would be best for them. Many of my so-called friends from high school are my "facebook" friends but it's the same type of friendship. They don't know much about my family and I, what I'm going through, what good/bad things are happening in my life...unless I post them.
The other day I began thinking...if I stopped posting things about my life on Facebook, who would know what's really going on in my life? Who? Definitely not the "only skin deep" friends, possibly my "this is convenient" friends, BUT you better believe my "eternal" friends would know. Because they have invested enough time & energy into our friendship and they truly care about me, they truly care about what's going on in my life.
Friendship takes time, energy, desire, forgiveness, love, understanding, and most of all, unselfishness. I'm beginning to see that things such as Facebook, texting, email, even blogs like this, are only causing more "convenient" friends and separating us from one another.
I'm not sure what I'm going to do with this new found knowledge and this new understanding. I'm hoping it'll help me recognize the "convenient" friendships vs. the "eternal" friendships so that I can focus my attention where it needs to be...the eternities!
