The ABCs of Friendship

A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words.

– Unknown

I attended a Women of Faith conference in Phoenix with my girlfriend. We heard Lisa Welchel, who played Blair in the Facts of Life show in the 1980’s. She shared with us that she didn’t know how to be a good friend or find one, to her surprise, in her 40s. Due to her work schedule, which started at age 12 with the Mickey Mouse Club and then the Facts of Life, she never had the time or opportunity to develop and learn how to choose a good friend or what she needed to do to be a good friend.

She yearned to have closeness with other women who could relate, encourage, cry, and laugh with her. She saw other women with great relationships and those with bad ones. Her longing to help someone on their life’s journey and find someone who would share hers helped her break out of her fears.

She tried it on her own and went through a series of being too much or needy, too expectant, and she shared with an untrustworthy person and got hurt. 

Next, she sought out professional help to learn from her mistakes:

• She watched for people whose words and actions of love and integrity matched. 
• She sought out women she respected. 
• She worked on her life in this area and accepted women for who they were without expectations of what they would do and be just for her. 
• She held them with a loose hand and encouraged them where they were. 

In return, she found her close girlfriends.

Like Lisa, I missed out on the lessons of friendship because my family constantly moved. I would begin to make friends only to find out I was leaving again. To avoid this pain, I resisted going any deeper than the surface. I, too, tried on my own and made many mistakes. The hardest thing for me to do was to be willing to trust my heart to others. 

Now in my 40s, I have a home and roots taking ground with my church, and I have worked on myself so I can now be a good friend. As I learned and grew to seek people I respected and who lived by what they said, I began to trust other good women with my heart.

I love my husband dearly, but he could never get me like my girlfriends. There is something special about close girlfriends who accept, support, laugh, cry, and shop with you. Women and men are wired so differently, and being around others who speak the same woman language is so uplifting and encouraging. 

God made us social, and it has only been in the last few years that I have awakened and embraced the true gift of God’s love in friendships.

What does friendship mean to you?