Changing Friendships

For those who don't know, this blog is more for deep thoughts and feelings than for everyday stuff (which I blog about at www.xanga.com/utlawgirl). Feel free to hop over there, but keep this one on the down low. And I may do some double posting, though it may not be exactly the same due to the number of people who know me for real who read Xanga.

My DH and I were discussing friendships the other day. We used to have one couple (if you know me, you know who I'm talking about) that we hung out with all the time. I was great friends with the wife and DH was great friends with the husband. This combination is SO rare, as those of you in a couple can attest to. But due to busy-ness and life changes, we've sort of grown apart. There aren't any hard feelings, but just a lot less of a sense of connection as there used to be. Strangely, this happened in both my friendship with the wife and DH's friendship with the husband.

This friend of mine was also one of a group of four girls who grew very close over several years. We shared EVERYTHING with each other, and I credit my accountability to them for saving my marriage, or at least for keeping me from walking away. But over the past year, one friend pulled away from the other three of us, and, like a car that lost a wheel, our foursome broke down. She and I are slowly getting to a place of reconciliation, but I know it will never be like it used to be.

I'm a believer that God does all things well, and he works all things for our good. I believe he has impeccable timing. And I believe he has a plan. Knowing these three things has helped me to see that these changes in our friendship must have happened for a reason.

This viewpoint represents huge growth on my part because I'm typically not one who deals well with changes in friendships. Each time I "lose" a friend, I tend to take it personally and take it hard. But, maybe due to my advanced age of 32, I can look back over the past and see the ebbs and flows of relationships, and understand that some are just for a season, while very, very few can ever be for a lifetime.

One upside is that we are now branching out much more. Where we used to socialize with the exact same people all the time, we are now looking for opportunities to expand our network of friends. And we've discovered some friends in some unlikely places, and some who were right under our nose the whole time. It's been good for us, and in the long run, I believe it will help us to reach more people and touch more lives for God, which is His commandment.