Devoted Friendship

In the last post I mentioned a sign I read which says "May a spirit of good cheer, devoted friendship and unconditional welcome be ever present in our home."

So today I wanted to look at a spirit of devoted friendship and whether that is present in our home.

I looked up friendship in the dictionary and it said it involves intimacy and mutual attachment.

I started thinking about ways to increase intimacy and attachment. This is what I came up with....

- Be honest. You cannot be close with someone if you cannot be honest with them. Be careful about the things you share though. Respect the need for privacy in your marriage. Your friends do not need to know intimate details about your husband or personal information he wouldn't want you to talk about.

- Be real. You cannot be friends with someone who is putting on a show all the time, someone who is fake. Your friends should like you for you not who you are pretending to be.

- Listen. I don't know about you but when I get together with friends we can get on quite a roll chatting about everything under the sun. I need to slow down a bit and be sure I am really listening, so I don't miss it if they are expressing a need, or sharing something really important.

- Take time to connect even if it is by phone or email when you can't get together physically. Even just a few minutes to catch up and let them know you are thinking about them and that you care can really go a long way. By doing this you won't miss it if they need help with something or just support. I just ran into a friend that I was very close to when our children were small and I realized I hadn't seen her in over a year! That is terrible! I need to be sure I don't let that happen again!

- That brings me to my next point which is to be there when they need you and share their burdens (while being sure your priorities are in order) I recently missed helping out a dear friend after she had a medical procedure....I am quite ashamed to admit that I didn't even bring a her family a meal or anything. ~sigh~ I feel just awful! I can't let that happen again either!

- Keep what you share together, conversations, prayers etc. between the two of you. Never share confidences with anyone else. Respect their privacy, be a good friend!

- Be sure your conversation and activities stay in line with being a Christian. Do not say or do anything that you wouldn't if you were face to face with God. By uplifting each other and having God honouring fellowship you will both feel refreshed by your time together and not have anything to feel bad about afterwards.

- Be the friend you would like to have! The Bible teaches us to do unto others as you would have them do unto you and that is the best advice for friendships!

So I am going to be striving to put these things into practice and hopefully there will be an increased spirit of devoted friendship in our home!


Blessings,
Liisa

Picture from allposters.com