Joyfullyblessed by unlikely friends

As I sit here tonight, I can see God growing in me a greater appreciation for those people I have the privilege to call “friend.”

 

This morning I read the following quote by C.S. Lewis:

I have no duty to be anyone’s friend and no man in the world has a duty to be mine. No claims, no shadow of necessity. Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art… It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.

I knew that as I moved out of college and into the next stage of life, “friend” would slowly find a new definition, but it’s just been neat to see that happen.  I’m not so convinced about the part where C.S. Lewis says that friendship has “no survival values” (for I’m certain that without some friends, I don’t know if I could survive),  BUT I am SOOO grateful for the value that friendship adds to my life everyday. 

 

Whether it’s skyping with a friend across the country, talking on the phone with my college roommates, meeting a new friend for coffee, or chatting online with a fellow intern, these moments add value to my life.

 

C.S. Lewis continues…

Hence, as he rings true time after time, our reliance, our respect and our admiration blossom into an appreciative love of a singularly robust and well-informed kind. If, at the outset, we had attended more to him and less to the thing our Friendship is ‘about,’ we should not have come to know or love him so well. You will not find the warrior, the poet, the philosopher or the Christian by staring in his eyes as if he were your mistress: better fight beside him, read with him, argue with him, pray with him.

Fight beside him.

Read with him.

Argue with him.

Pray with him.

 

This year, the above things have grown some beautiful friendships… even some “unlikely” ones…

… walking with a dear sister that I didn’t really know at all until Facebook and blogging allowed us to enter into each other’s lives this year… fighting against the lies of Satan… praying for strength for each day… reading words from each others’ hearts and from our mutual “friend”, Ann

… coworkers… teammates… fighting, reading, praying, maybe even arguing at times together… with one goal in mind: help them see Jesus

… talking and learning and praying with fellow interns as we journey through similar situations this year… especially holding dear those friends whom I didn’t really get to know well while in school… but as we grow and pray and struggle and rejoice through this year… we find that “appreciative love” growing

… younger friends

… older friends

… near friends

… far-away friends

… long-time friends

… new friends

… forever friends

… for-a-season friends

 

To all of you… I am truly humbled to call you “friend.”

“In a perfect friendship this appreciative love is, I think, often so great and so firmly based that each member of the circle feels in his secret heart, humbled before all the rest.“ ~ C.S. Lewis