Sharing Your Friends
Sometimes in life we have a tendency to hold on to a good thing with a tight grip when we’ve finally found it. The reason may vary but most often it is connected to a fear that if we don’t keep a close watch then it will slip away like sand slips through the cracks of our fingers. The culture we live in plays a role in this line of thought as we are taught to look out for number one, protect our possessions, and put our own needs above the needs of our neighbor.
In the past I have been this way with my friends. Good friends are hard to come by and for those of us who don’t make them so easy our tendency is to hold them close, much like our favorite toy that we wouldn’t let others touch or play with when we were children. What I am learning about friendship is that good friends need to be shared. We need to consider sharing our friends with others, and opening ourselves up to be shared.
I have not stumbled upon this…I have experienced it. I am a part of a community that is really good at this. I have never experienced anything like it before…not on a sports team, not in family, and not in church. I only started to realize how much some of my friends really loved and cared for me when they began to share their friends with me.
Can you ever have to many friends? True Friends? Friends that show up, share life with you, celebrate with you, and care enough to tell you the truth when they see you stumbling.
When we hold our friends so close that we keep them from other possible life-giving relationships, we rob three parties. We rob our friends the opportunity to make more friends. We rob others the opportunity to make a new friend, and we rob ourselves the joy of enlarging our circle of friendship.
Perhaps this happens because we are afraid that are new friends will like our old friends better than us. Perhaps we are hesitant to let our new friends introduce their friends because if we offer ourselves up they might resist…and the fear of rejection overtakes the excitement of new possibilities. Whatever the reason we only end up hurting ourselves when we resist sharing and being shared. We subject ourselves to the fear, become our own judge and jury, and then carry out our own sentence.
Examine your group of friends. Think about which of your friends might benefit from the opportunity to make more friends. Arrange some meetings, invite others to coffee, lunch, or have a party. Open yourself up to possibility, to opportunity, to relationship, friendship, to creating community. You can sit back and wait for it to happen, or you can create it.
To each of my friends I want to say thank you. That seems very inadequate but it is what my heart feels…lots of gratitude for each of you. Thanks for being in my life. Thanks for caring for me and loving me unconditionally. Thanks for letting me love you back and offer my gifts to you. Thanks for sharing your friends with me. I love each of you!
Be Blessed Friends…You Already Are!
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