FRIENDS & FAMILY

Someone once said, “It is more important to have the respect of those you respect than to have the applause of the whole world.” Friends & family are kind of like that. We don’t generally think about respecting our own family, we just love them despite their faults, but the family members we admire the most are usually those we respect too.
Some families are very close, both emotionally and geographically. They live near, maybe even next door; to each other their whole lives. The kids may even marry local people and the spouses stay near to their companion’s families. In some cases this is a good thing, in others, disagreements may arise, hurt may grow and family members may not talk to one another for decades.

More often, however, jobs, wars, vocations and a host of other distractions may separate families. When someone says, “Why he’s as close to me as a brother,” that can have different meanings, depending on how close we are to our own brothers. After I left home for the military, I never really lived at my parent’s home again. Oh, I would go home for visits, but it wasn’t the same. I had begun to make my own friends and start my own family. We tried to stay close but it was bittersweet. The outside obligations were forever tugging at us.
It was then that I began to see the value of friends. I don’t mean casual friends that you chat with about the weather or the price of gasoline; I mean real friends. Spouses are usually first on the list of friends but spouses are much more than that. The friends that I am thinking about are not as close as a spouse but still are closer than extended family members that you seldom see.

The military and vocations moved us about many times in our lives and so I have learned that friends don’t have to be someone you’ve known most of your life, although I’ve had a couple of those. Friends are people that are there with an understanding word, a helping hand, a kind gesture that is altogether genuine. A real friend has no hidden agenda, no ulterior motive, and no thought about manipulation. That’s the kind of friend I want to be to them.
The years have grown harsher as time elapses and it may seem more difficult to find a real friend, but they are out there and it has been my privilege to meet many. By the end of two or three years living at one location, those friends usually are members that you see to work, that live next door or at your church. It is a sad thing to move on and leave friends behind. Sometimes we stay in touch but more often we drift apart only to make new ones at our next home.

Not long ago, by chance, I bumped into an old friend, at a public place, that I had not seen in over twenty years. I was so happy to see him that tears rolled down my face as renewed our friendship. Turns out, he lived just a couple miles from the home we had just moved in to.
Life can be tough and can kick us around, but friends can ease the pain. Thank God for friends & family.