A Taste of Friendship

 

by Leslie Aune

 It went on for quite some time. One-year-old Travis sat at the table watching Grammy run the thread through her mouth, poke it into the needle's eye, and add a new color to her crosstitch, then repeat the process.  Finally, her activity convinced him. He reached into the growing pile of thread scraps, picked a colorful thread and ran it through his mouth.     Immediately, he threw the thread back into the pile, his lip turned up in disgust and he glared at Grammy: Why on earth would anyone run thread through their mouth?

 From the time he was a baby, I didn't have to worry about what Travis would put in his mouth. He simply did not put anything in his mouth that was not food or drink. I had four years without this worry before our second child came along. Allison was a typical baby and explored the world by tasting everything.  I had to work extra hard to keep tiny toys out of reach and teach her not to put everything that she came across in her mouth.

 As my children grew, I saw these same traits cross over to their friendships. Travis has been more selective in his choices. He is quiet and observant, often mistaken for shy. This reserved nature caused consternation with the ladies at church and I received much advice on how to help him out of his "shyness".  My dad, who is a lieutenant in a police department with 40 plus years of law enforcement experience, told me, "Leave it alone. That will be his saving grace as a teenager."  My son is 16 now and he is still careful with his choice of friends.

 My daughter, on the other hand, approached friendship with a wide open heart. Everyone was her friend. When she was four, she was convinced that all her friends knew each other.  We were visiting our friends in Amarillo and Allison said to Kallie, "You know the Owens family, of course." Kallie didn't.  That threw Allison for a loop when she realized her friends, who lived 6 hours apart, didn't actually know each other.  It took her a couple of days to get over that bewilderment and understand why her two friends didn't know each other.

 The weaknesses in these two approaches soon became clear.  While Travis used wisdom and discernment to carefully select his friends, he did not always demonstrate grace for those who proved to be unsafe friends.  Allison, on the other hand, was so free with her love and acceptance that I was afraid that wisdom and discernment in selecting close friends would not develop.

 During second grade, one particular girl was constantly saying mean things to Allison, such as threatening to break her arm or hurt her at recess.  As you can imagine, this was difficult for Allison who had only known friendship.  But it gave us the opportunity to teach wisdom in selecting close friends. The next year this same girl had some difficult days that led her to tears at recess and I found out later that Allison had spent some time comforting and encouraging her. Oh, what grace!

 As they continue to grow in their friendships, their two methods have begun to meld together to develop a healthy approach to friendships.  Through this development, we are all learning more about choosing our friends carefully.    We should be careful with what groups of friends we hang out with since bad company corrupts morals (1 Corinthians 15:33) and we don't want our friends to hinder our walk with our Lord (Hebrews 12:1).  For example, if our Bible study or prayer group is nothing more than a gossip session, then we either want to re-direct the focus if we can or find another group. 

 Our closest friends should be Christians that are learning and growing in their faith with us (2 Corinthians 6:14), so that those friendships can be the "iron that sharpens iron" (Proverbs 27:17). That is, friendships that encourages each party to abide in Christ and make choices that reflect that of their faith.  These types of friendships are the ones that help us firm up our theology to reflect what the Bible says or hold us accountable when our actions and attitudes are not lining up with how God is calling us to live out our faith.

  This doesn't mean that we are not to have friends that are not Christians nor are we to respond with unkindness.   Setting our boundaries on what establishes close friendships versus friends we hang out with versus people who are not good for us to be around, frees us to respond to people with truth, love, and grace Then, we can enjoy the taste of friendship that is seasoned with love and grace as well as wisdom and discernment.