As I was searching online trying to find others dealing with the same situations as mine I found a wonderful blog titled, Friends. I can relate to a lot of statements that Stuart Buck makes in regards to being married with kids and finding it more difficult to create new friendships. These past couple of months have been a very deep and down self reflection period. As I refuse to cry over things that provide me little or no answers I have spent much more time reflecting and making changes to myself. One of those changes is to focus on the positive. I do have friends. I have what this author refers to as soul mates. One of my friends since 6th grade is someone that I talk to nearly daily. We are each other's morning coffee as we go over our nightly activities and the cute things that our 3 kids under 4 are doing. Often we will also call each other first when our kids are experiencing something and we think that the other might know what is going on. We don't get to see each other often, but I know without a minute of hesitation that she is there for me in a second and she knows that I would do anything for her.
Several of my other friendships have started by going to the same church for the past nearly 10 years. It is always nice when Kyle and I both mesh with the couple and we can share family activities. We have a couple of these families that we have impromptu dinner/activity nights. It seems during cold/flu season that these become more infrequent because Kyle and I are extremely paranoid about germs and try as much as possible to keep our little boy from getting sick.
As I have spent time reflecting about making changes in my life I have evaluated what I am looking for in a friend rather than how few friends I have. My friend Jodie often says that I have lots of friends. I agree with her statement, but I would rather invest time in those friendships that are deep than have several "surface" level friendships. I am striving to provide my friends with trust, integrity, and most of all compassion and love. It isn't the easiest thing to do to always just listen and not react, but often it is what is expected of us. When is the last time that you just sat and listened to a friend without giving them advice? When is the last time that you truly kept that secret? I am in no way perfect, but I am making leaps and bounds in the areas of trying to be a good friend and in return it is improving the biggest friendship of all; my relationship with Jesus.
Kyle and I both want our marriage to be centered on Jesus and realize that to do this it requires keeping your morals and integrity in check at all time. Make sure that you are being a positive reflection to those around you, rather than allowing them to pull you down into their destructive path. I know that this friendship blog tends to ramble, but I really wanted to share some stuff from my heart.
