Friendship

6/29/11 A recent read, The Dead Don't Dance, included an Edith Wharton quote. I don't know if it's from one of her books (Ethan Frome was a 12th grade English assignment) or just her writings but it certainly spoke to my heart.

"There is one friend in the life of each of us who seems not a separate person, however dear and beloved, but an expansion, an interpretation, of one's self, the very meaning of one's soul." (Edith Wharton)

I had to ask myself, "Am I that kind of friend?"

Are you?

I have many great friends---from the workplace and traveling buds to high school chums, spiritual confidants and prayer warriors. Over the last few years, I feel as if I have "bled them dry," sucking the very lifeblood out of them as they gave unselfishly of themselves to me. I don't want to be a "vampire friend"---one who saps your energy and leaves you feeling totally drained. I want to be a Jesus kind of friend. Loving others as He has loved me.

My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command....Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. (John 15.12-15)

Thanks to all who have sacrificially laid down so many aspects of their own lives for me and in so doing have shared that kind of friendship with me.