Friendship

Romans 1:12 "When we get together I want to encourage you in your faith, but I also want to be encouraged by yours."

I was just talking about how I felt like I was the person I was in college and the person I am now because of the friendships I had developed while in college.  I honestly felt like I was encouraged in my walk with the Lord, by the way my friends lived, how we hung out, what we did, what we didn't do.  Now that I'm married I feel we need other Christian married couples to help us when we fall, encourage us when we're down, be there for us when we need it as well as we need to be there for others.  I recently read a blog post about ways to help your marriage survive and one of the points were to have Christian friends.  Then today I read that verse in Romans! God sure knows how to work in our hearts!  I am so thankful I have friends who don't act as if they have it all figured out, or have the perfect marriage or the perfect life. But rather, I have friends who are struggling and not afraid to ask for prayers, friends who are willing to give us encouragement but also needing it.  Those are the friends we all need! Friends that are real, authentic, true, peculiar treasures as my favorite author, Robin Jones Gunn, puts it (also in Exodus 9:5 kjv). In the last part of Isaiah 43:4, it states how I feel about my closest friends.  It says, "You are precious to me. You are honored. And I love you." I'm looking forward to more game nights, hopefully worship nights, hanging out and discussing God's plans for our lives and sharing prayer request. I may miss those long nights singing worship songs by the fire, my college church group of close friends, and having so many Christian friends around anytime I needed them, but it's not too late to keep in contact more with those I love, those Christian friends who do care that I am friends with now,  both from college and those I've met since and thru church. You all mean more than you'll ever know to me.   Another new year's resolution for me is to be more intentional with my friends, spend more time with them, send them text messages reminding them they are special to me, pray for them, send them Bible verses as encouragment because you never know when they might be needing it.  God knows and if he's putting it on our mind, chances are they are needing to hear it! I love you my peculiar treasures!  You are loved and honored! Thanks for being such great friends!