Life: Friendship

Friends are good to have, they make us laugh, and they cry with us, they rejoice with you.   Friends are there for you.  Although friendship is a great gift in life, the road to friendship is not always smooth – relationships are good but they need work, they need to be nurtured.

As a child we have many friends - some of these are real and some are imaginary – but almost everybody is our friends, except maybe for the annoying boy in class who always disrupts everything.  As a child I had friends at school, at church and on my street.  My friendship circles as a child overlapped as some friends I saw in all three places.  I even had a best friend, someone who and known me all her life but I only met her when I was six months old – her name was Helen and she was two months older than me but only met me when I was adopted into my family. Helen went to my church, and my school and she lived across the carriageway from me so most Saturdays were spent at each other’s houses.

Helen is still my friend though I have not seen her for years, but she is the type of friend that If I saw have, it would not be awkward, it would be like we had seen each other every day – the friendship would pick up right where we left it. I like friendships like that.

We didn’t stop being friends, we never fell out, the friendship is still there but due to my Dad’s job I had to leave Belfast and all my friends there and move to Bangor to a new school, a new street (which was more like a road, and had no houses either side of me!) and a new church.  I was 11 and I had to make new friends.

We feel that we need many friends around us, we want everyone to like us, but in reality that cannot happen – as people are people, we are imperfect and personalities clash. As children this isn’t really the case as we all seem to like each other, but as teenagers, wow does this change.

In my teenage years I struggled with making friends, it was hard – not sure why, maybe it was just the person I was, but school was hard – I did have friends but one day you are friends and the next day you are fighting. It was hard.  I had friends at church as well, but also felt I was the intruder as they all grew up together. But there was one friend, her name was Michelle - she was my best friend at school and at church – yes we fought but we were still friends after that.  We are still friends today though we live in different cities – but again if I bumped into Michelle in the street it would pick up where we left off.   I see her on Facebook so still feel I am part of her life, as she will always be in mine.

With Helen and Michelle, the friendship stays even though we have moved on and gone different ways.  That’s what I call true friendship – when you can go for ages without seeing someone but when you do see them you pick up where you left off.

We have friends for life, friends for a season and friends for a reason.

After school I left Northern Ireland and went to England for University – again a new place and having to make new friends again.  I had left my friends at home and it was hard. I made friends at university through the Christian Union, but it was hard for me to make friends in my classes – I spoke to people but friendships were never forged, but I did have good friends to do like with at university – but again after we finished our degrees we all moved away from Sunderland and went our separate ways. But with the aid of Facebook some of us still keep in touch.  These friends I never see but I believe that some were friends for a season while with others if I met up with them now, it would not be awkward – it would feel natural again as we have a common bond.  

We were there for each other at university, when a school friend of mine died suddenly at home, aged 21, my friends rallied around me and supported me through my grief. That is love and friendship.   With those friends I truly believe that it was orchestrated by God that we would meet each other and do University life together.

After University, I left Sunderland and moved to London – during this time I lived in three houses in three different parts of London, I attended two different churches and was employed in five different jobs as well as doing my Masters at university. Again I had to make new friends in a new place – and several times forge new relationships with colleagues etc.

Friendship as an adult is different from those as a child, a teenager and at university – as adults we have different priorities – friendships start but then sometimes instead of growing and flourishing, they stop dead.

Friends are good but sometimes friendships can be bad as you can live in each other’s pockets and suck the life out of each other. I had a friend like this in London and it wasn’t good, it was unhealthy.

As I said before, in my eight years in London I lived in three different houses, and within these houses I managed to do life with sixteen different people who all reigned from seven different countries – England, Singapore, Hungary, Germany, Japan, USA and Slovakia. From them I learned about different cultures. Friendship can educate us.

I had friends in my churches and again these were with people from different countries – England, Northern Ireland, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Hungary, Malaysia, Philippines, Australia, Bolivia, France and Egypt.

I made friends in London that are still friends today even though I left London four years ago and now live back in Northern Ireland. I don’t see these friends often but again when we do the friendship comes alive again and we pick up where we left off.  These friends have moved on as well with some still remaining in London but one has moved to South of England while one is back in Northern Ireland but in a different city than me, so don’t see her very often.

Life moves on as we move on but friendships can continue – I pray for my friends, we email, we Facebook each other, we text each other and talk on the phone.

After eight years in London I decided to go and live for a year in Peru and this year saw me making more friends – more international friends.  Friends I may never see again but friends who made a year away from home special and friends who I will always love and will always be in my heart.

Don’t get me wrong, I love all my friends and they will all be in my heart always, but the Peruvians were there for me when I was away from my family – they were my family in a foreign land – they put up with me not being able to speak their language every well. I laughed with my friends, laughed at them laughing at me and my language blunders and cried with some of them when their father died. 

There is one person who I met in Peru who has a special place in my heart and that is my friend Alejandro who has Down’s syndrome and is one of the best friends I have had even though he was unable to talk to me, but we clicked.

I didn’t just have Peruvian friends in Peru, I made friends with the Cuban pastor and his family as well as making friends with fellow missionary Cecily who was from Scotland. I love having international friends.

When I left Peru after a year there, around 20 people came to the airport to see me go – either they were sad to see me leave or they wanted to make sure I left.  

Moving back to Northern Ireland to a different town from the one I left 13 years previously I was at the point again where I had to remake my life – finding a job, finding a church and making new friends.  As I have said before making friends in adult life in harder than in childhood.

I have been home three years and I have friends – those who kick me in the butt when I need it, who pick me up when I am down, who pray for me, who get me out of pity parties and who are there for me as I am for them. 

We are called in life to live in community, and especially so as a Christian.  We are made to be in relationships and not do life alone – doing life alone is very lonely and hard.  We need to be there for all of our friends, for those we do life with on a regular basis as well as those we may not see all the times and we need to reach out, pray for and me there for our friends when they fall apart.

I once thought I had to have loads of friends but now I realise it is not about how many friends you have, it is about who has got your back and catches you when you fall ad vice versa.

I have friends who come into my house and treat it like it is their own - they make themselves tea, take over the kitchen, move tables, etc etc. This is good as means they feel at home.

I have friends who have seen me in my PJ's and who have seen me cry and in my sickbed. They have seen me at my worst yet they are still around.

That to me is friendship - when you feel comfortable around people and can just go round to their, kick off your shoes, put you feet up or even lie down on the couch and watch TV which some friends have done. Friendship is good.