There are quite a few really highlighted moments for me as a kid.
One of them is me always coming home crying about my ‘friends’ at school (or, lack thereof). Yes, primary school was torture where friends are concerned. One day I was the person telling everyone to stop fighting and the next day they would reconcile and decide to pull an uprising stunt against me. Confusion reigned everywhere except with my best friend. I couldn’t remember how we started being friends (still can’t) but we never fought, and obviously I thought that there must be something terribly wrong with how we were doing things.
One day I walked into the kitchen of the house we lived in and my grandfather sat reading the paper – I was exasperated and pulling my regular crying routine. I said a whole lot of stuff to him but he only said one thing back and it’s been with me for my whole life. He said, “You don’t need a whole lot of friends. You only need one.”
High school was much easier (I think it was because the Sugar Babes stopped being a group – I’m sure it was), and I learnt some hard lessons about just chilling and not clinging to the one person I found like they were life or death.
After school I leant that it was okay to be alone, because all my best friends left to live their own lives. It was so good for me. When I was crying about that, my mother said this to me, “There’ll always be a time in your life when you have people, appreciate the times when you can be alone”
After that I came into a spacious place as a person. I finally understood that people are just like the tide. There is an ebb and flow. They come in and out of your life continuously.
There was a lot more freedom in this place for me to be able to let people go (without holding anything to them) when the time for us being ‘together’ was over. That scripture in 1 Corinthians 15:33 means a whole lot more to me now, “Don’t be misled: ‘Bad company corrupts good character.’” We become like the people we spend our time with, or whom ever we allow to invest into our lives. Bad company doesn’t have to be ‘criminal company’ or something drastic like. Bad company could just be too much negativity, hopelessness, too much gossip, or just people who have no plan or direction for their lives. Letting those people over stay their welcome in your life is very dangerous (2 Corinthians 6:14). It’s really just learning the art of discernment. Someone who could have been good for you for the last two years could be really terrible for you now, and, it’s okay to let him or her go and walk in a total different direction afterwards.
If you want someone reliable and someone who’s always going to be good for you and there for you, then, the Bible says that Jesus is the friend that sticks closer than a brother (and we all know how close those can stick – Proverbs 18:24). That same verse also says that too many friends can ruin you.
For some of us, learning to shed off the unreasonable friendships and be okay with sometimes being alone is HELLA SCARY. We don’t know how to be alone because we don’t really like being with ourselves. Well, there’s no better time than now to start clinging to that friend I told you about. Developing a relationship with Jesus and seeing yourself through his eyes (by reading his words) will not only help you be a better friend, but also help you to shed off the demand for always having people around you.
If you’re battling today, then I pray that this can be a word of encouragement to you. Let today be the start of a new friendship.