Your Friends are Important

The past 72 hours has been the craziest time I have had all summer long. I feel like since school has been out it has been one thing after the other and the grand finale was my brother’s wedding. There are so many topics that I could write about: love, commitment, and busyness…the list could go on forever! From everything that happened the last few days, one silly little conversation stood out to me. I was sitting at the wedding party table at the wedding reception holding my son and I turned to one of my brother’s groomsmen and made (what I thought was a random) comment about how Judah needed to find a group of friends as good as Drew’s. Drew’s friend laughed and we had some conversation about how they have had a lot of fun over the years, but I can’t get the comment out of my head.

Those of you who were at camp heard me talk a little bit about my friends, but I never had a group of good friends that I spent a lot of time with while I was growing up. I had friends at school, many of them non-Christians, but most of those relationships were surface level. I remember days sitting at my mom’s kitchen table crying because I never understood why I didn’t have friends that would build me up in Christ and not ridicule me for my Christian faith.

I have watched the friendships my brother has with each of his groomsmen grow over the years and I was jealous. Sometimes God uses our weaknesses to teach us a lesson, and he has used the weakness I have with jealousy over and over in my life to teach me to rely on Him. I struggled in high school to “fit in” somewhere, and I just never felt like I did. I cried, I prayed, I cried some more that God would just give me a true friend. You may have heard that God answer prayers with three answers, “yes, no, or wait”. Well, my prayer for a friend was answered with wait for years.

Just over the past year God has begun to answer my prayer for good friends. He has blessed me with people that I can laugh with and people that will talk to me about the struggles I have going on in my life. I know that I can send a text anytime for prayer and that they will be praying for me, and I am blessed to be able to receive messages from them asking for prayer. I don’t have to look at my brother and his friends and be jealous anymore because God has blessed me abundantly in His timing (which is always perfect).

I want to leave you with a few verses from the book of Proverbs that really speak to me when it comes to true friends…

“Iron sharpens iron, as one man sharpens another.” Proverbs 27:17

“Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up!” Ecclesiastes 4:9-10

We are not meant to be alone in our struggles in life. Find good Christian friends that will hold you up and sharpen you so you can be used by God to do His work.

Sarah

Teen Leader