The Imperfect Friend

Over the years, I have learned that friendship can hurt. Perhaps you can relate if you ever had a friend who hurt your feelings. Take for example when a good friend, or so I thought, had a problem and asked everybody, including Ms. Internet, their opinion and never asked me. I felt like she didn’t trust me or have confidence in my opinion. This may seem like a small thing to some of you, but others know that “small” things can wreck a great friendships.

To reign in my emotions, I thought about the meaningful aspects of our friendship. I confided in her at work and she allowed me to safely vent, and vice versa. Her differences complemented me and opened my perspective about many issues. She offered sound Biblical advice even when that was not always what I wanted to hear. That’s a true friend.

In response to the situation, I had to pause and not allow my feelings to drive my actions and as a result potentially lose a friendship. I had to take time to see the true heart of my friend. A good friend is hard to find. What’s so counter cultural about keeping my friend? The “reality” show cat fight provides a few laughs, but in real life doing the hard emotional work to resolve a matter is the right thing to do. It brings healing, to us and to the other person. Sometimes we can quickly jump on the revenge kick and we lose out on the sweet fruit of forgiveness. Our friends are no more perfect than us. We are the imperfect friend! We show our friends love when we let things slide.

Forgiveness is counter cultural! 

Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you. Ephesians 4:32 (NAS)