Friendship is a necessity of life for every man and woman. This need begins when you’re born, when you first feel the sweet warmth of your mother holding you tightly, so that you don’t want to let go. As you grow a little older, you soon learn the pleasure of making your father laugh. Then, when you’re old enough to go to school, you meet a girl your own age that seems to be everything you’ve always wanted to be.
Finally, as an adult, you marry the man of your dreams who also becomes your best friend. Unfortunately, this scenario represents an ideal world that doesn’t usually match reality…
Friends come and go; friendships begin and end; and even the best of friends can sometimes let distance come between them. Most of the time, we are the ones who let this happen. It’s some gossip you hear, a misunderstanding over something, an attitude shown without thought, or an expectation higher than anyone could possibly achieve.
Though we realise the importance of friendship, little things can make us forget how important that dear friend really is and we may impulsively make the wrong choice: to distance ourselves. Have you ever heard of distance healing a wound? A wound in the heart cannot be healed with distance or time because it’s within us and memories won’t just disappear.
“Time heals all wounds” goes the saying, but do you know what that truly means? It doesn’t mean that if you don’t see the person who hurt you, for a long, long time, your wounds will be healed, because if it did, then where do grudges come from? It means that after time passes and one concludes that holding onto bad memories is foolishness, healing is finally achieved.
Grudges don’t hurt anyone but you. When you hold onto something bad, it goes with you everywhere you go, just like a tiresome burden hanging around your neck. If you think about it, why carry this with you when you could just put it down and move on? I used to have two very close friends who distanced themselves from me; and when it happened, I felt really hurt. Every time I heard their names, I’d remember how disappointed they made me feel, and I had no interest in anything to do with them.
Though I had forgiven them in my heart, I had also decided never to be hurt in that way again, and so I distanced myself as well. It was only after God spoke to me that I realised how wrong I was to do the same that they were doing to me.
Why do we often take the same wrong course as others – by distancing ourselves, changing our attitude, or seeing them in a different light – just to protect ourselves? In my heart, I’ve always tried to be such a good friend; so why would I now do otherwise? This is the reason that broken friendships happen: we let them be broken. If we remain a good friend, the friendship will not be broken and we will be a good example for them to follow.
In faith,
Mrs Cristiane Cardoso