thoughts on friendship...

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when i was little girl, i made friends like lays makes potato chips. every other person on the playground i was asking, "do you want to be my friend?" now that i think about it, i am not sure if other kids asked people straight up like that... maybe that is not normal. uh... when i was a little girl, i was so cool, and not weird at all, and the other kids on the playground just flocked to me. they were always asking me, "do you want to be my friend?" yah that sounds better. i wasn't shy, not even a little bit. in fact my mom had to leash me in public, because i would wander off and try to make friends with the ax murder. serious. i loved people, and wanted to be friends with everyone. and i was.

i am 25 now. i have very few friends. i can count my friends on one hand. and i am content. i don't need anyone, other than my matthew, my husband, my best friend. if it were just he and i in the world, i would be happy, and so would he.

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lizzie and i have been friends since 2nd grade. her family lived up the street from my grandma, and before we moved to colorado in 2nd grade, we used to play with her and her siblings when we would visit. she was one of the first real friends i made on the playground at school that first day. our friendship has moved and changed. sometimes we were very close, sometimes we were not. but she is my constant. i would always go back to lizzie, and her back to me. we were just meant to be. she knows me better than anyone, she understands me. we are completely opposite, and completely the same. she is hippie and free and liberal. she loves Jesus, but loses Him in the mess of her life sometimes. i miss her everyday. our lives are busy and sometimes we talk solely through voicemail for months at a time. but i know she loves me as much as i love her, and when we finally get to talk, or see each other face to face, we cry and laugh, and it is like no time ever passed.

jennifer, my jennifer, is my cousin. she is my sister in every way. jennifer and i are soul mates. we are the same person trapped in two very different bodies. she is very tall, and very slim. she used to model. i am fairly short, and fairly round, and we would walk around town with our hands in each others back pockets, and i would think how strange we must look to the world around us. but we did not care. jennifer and i play nubs, and cheat at uno. we spoon when we sleep in the same bed. i can ugly cry with jennifer about nothing at all, and she will just cry with me. i can tell her anything and everything and i know she understands. jennifer and i have never fought. really. seriously. not once. we love each other too much, we are too much the same, it would be like fighting with yourself. we always dreamed we would spend our whole lives together, raise our families together, shop, and go to the pool, and drink margarita's, and pretend we are avid runners. she is the best mother i have ever seen, but i am 500 miles away. i miss her like you could not believe. there is a hole in my heart without her near. she was valentine for many years, my best friend, my bed mate, and one of the only people who gets me and loves me still.

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three sisters
kip decker

april is my cousin. we are closer than 2 sisters every could be. april and i's friendship grows and fades, but we are sisters and love each other no matter what. we spent every single day together, she lived just 3 streets down form me most of my life. for several summers we did not spend a single night apart from each other. she is beautiful, she is the person everyone else is drawn to and wants to know. i was always her weird, not as cute, kinda chubby cousin. for some reason, she kept me around. she makes me laugh, oh does she make me laugh. when april got herself into trouble, it was one of the lowest points of my own life. my heart had been torn apart. and as she pulled it back together, i tried to be there everyday. she is the bravest mother i have ever met. she made the hardest, bravest, choice a mother could ever make. she chose to give her baby girl to a family that could love her and care for better than she could at the time. she is one of the strongest people i know. i wish i could be more like april, i have so much i could learn from her. she is strong, and confident, and brave. and she loves me, as i do her, no matter what happens, or what disagreements we have. we will be friends ans sisters til the day we die.

and matthew, my matthew. i don't know why he loves me. but he does. he holds me when i cry, and only laughs at me when it is completely ridiculous. he tells me i am beautiful, and he means it, even when i hate what i see in the mirror. he believes in me. we could talk forever, or not say a word forever, and be happy just the same. as long as he is next to me, the world makes sense. even when he is what makes it complicated, even when it is our relationship that makes the world a curious a place, being apart from him makes less sense, being next to him everything is as it should be. he is my best friend, forever. he is stuck with me, an i with him. and we wouldn't have it any other way.

Pierre Auguste Renoir: Girls At The Piano2
girls at the piano 2
pierre auguste renoir

when i was in elementary school i had a very dear friend, lets call her norah. norah was a goofball. she and i held hands on the playground, and prayed together. she loved Jesus, and had a faith far too strong for her few years. she is the only person i ever bought a friendship necklace for. and i think i bought her several. earrings, necklace, bracelet, anklet, another couple necklaces. i still have a couple of them, those broken hearts. one says be fri. the other best. i treasured her friendship. her family was one of the sweetest, nicest, truest families i have ever known. God brought us together, and i ripped us apart. it breaks my heart to think of what i did. halfway through 6th grade, we made different friends. she was still a goofball, i was too cool for school. truth is, she knew who she was, and i would search for years to find myself. i slipped a note in her locker one day explaining to her why we were so different now, and how our friendship had changed. we could still be friends, i explained, just not best friends anymore. i broke her heart. and it broke mine too... only years too late. i wonder everyday what i missed out on in the years to come. we would make amends in high school, have coffee on occasion, and smile and hug, but i ruined one of the best and truest friendships i ever had, and i don't even know why.

in high school i had mona, i have written about mona before. for 4 years there were 4 girls inseparable. lizzie, elva(yes i changed this name too), mona, and me. we changed our schedules to have classes together, we shared lockers, and lunch periods, and homes. we were rarely ever apart. we shared dreams, and plans, and hopes, and lives. the week after graduation she went with my dad and i to see the new home he had just bought in nebraska. 4 days later, she ended our friendship via email. she said our friendship had come to an end, and that she never really felt like she was a part of us at all. i read the email stunned, heartbroken, teary eyed. i cried for days. i never understood it. i still don't to this day. i still love mona dearly, i think of her often, and hope she is doing well. i wish her all the happiness in life, and peace, and faith and love. i pray for her often, and i know she found the friends she was looking for out there somewhere, because she was a wonderful, beautiful girl.

there are many others friends who have come into my life and left me forever changed. i want you all to know i love you all, and you all have meant the world to me, forever, or for a time, you have helped shaped me into who i am today, and i am so glad you were a part of of my life.

friendship is always changing. friends are always changing. some friends are brought into our lives forever, others for just a moment. friends shape and mold us, friendships make us grow.

God brings some friends into your lives who are meant to be there forever. your constants, your soul mates, your family. the ones who can pick you up when you fall down, the ones who you can cry your ugliest tears to, the ones who make you pee a little when you laugh. the ones who love you even when you scream and act irrational, the ones who give you hope, faith, and dreams.

there are some friends that weave in and out. troubles may keep them away for a short while, you may fight and disagree, you may need your space, for a day, a week, a month, or 3 years, but they always come back. you know deep down, they are always there.

God brings some friends into your lives for just a moment. to help you pass a difficult time, or teach a lesson, about ourselves, or love, or life. to give us peace when we need it, joy when we need it, love when we need it.

some friendships end in hurt and pain, some friendships are ended too soon. some friends are not with us near as long as we would want them to be. some friendships last a lifetime, bring us nothing but joy and peace.

but every friend, every friendship, has a purpose, a reason, a point. God allows friends to come and stay, or come and go. He gives us the desire for friends, the need for a common soul, the desire for camaraderie, the need to share our hearts, the desire to talk and laugh and cry with another person who understands, or who can help. God made us that way, because every friend, every friendship fits inside of His perfect will. because without that desire, we would not search for ourselves, and we would not search for Him. in our search for friendship, in our search for a common soul, we in turn find ourselves, and we see His glory as He planned.

Comments

  1. Hello Melinda Sue,
    I read your mom-in-laws blog and followed her link over to your post of the awesome Coldplay pictures. Yep, I love them too. Then I saw that you did missions overseas and fell in love with Paris and I too had the opportunity for a short term mission in Paris and fell in love just the same. No, I don't real-life know Donna but I found her on two blogs I read for very different reasons: Tongue in Cheek and Pioneer Woman, and have been a fan of her sweetness, pictures, and constant encouragement. It seems the Lord was greatly pleased to bless you with not only with your husband but also your in-laws. And I see they are blessed too. Well all that to introduce myself and say that I agree that friendship, especially between girls, I think, can be quite a comfort and refuge and when it isn't it can be more deliberately hurtful then the camaraderie between boys/men. I don't know why but I also sit here having had such amazing friendships (so God provided) at vital times in my life yet I have either too much neglected the keeping in touch, or life circumstances have separated us. I too desire to do better but all the same am so thankful for how He has "led me with cords of human kindess", bound me with "ties of love". Thank you for your encouraging blog and your honesty.

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  2. jenny, thanks for coming by... i am just tickled when people come to visit me here, and so amazed at the common cords i share with so many. i am blessed.

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  3. you have great taste in friends. and now i really miss april. i also have one of those broken heart necklaces with 'be fri' etched into it. the sad thing is, i'm not sure who the other half belonged to.

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  4. YOU have such a gift for writing!

    I enjoyed this post.

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  5. Jennifer10:52

    Oh Melinda, I just ugly cried when I read this. I miss you and I love you. I wish we saw each other more! I am always so glad that we all had each other growing up, being that we were sister-less.
    Love you!
    Jennifer

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  6. jennifer, i love you. i loved that painting i found of the three sisters, it reminded me so of us.

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  7. robin, thank you for your encouragement. i enjoyed writing this post too ;)

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  8. This post reminds me so much of the song, "For Good," from the Wicked soundtrack. Do you know it? If not, YouTube it and see if you like it as much as I do. :)

    Susie in Indiana

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  9. susie, my brother loves wicked, but sadly i dont know any songs from it. i will have to youtube it soon.

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