Friends Are Friends Forever...Sometimes

So, I'm at one of my new part time gigs today, which is cleaning for a family that lives across town. They are a young couple (translated = younger than me) and have a little girl that is about a year and a half old. They own an advertising firm and work from home and the balance between work and housework was not balancing so well so that leads to me being in their home cleaning.

This morning I'm there cleaning and I'm bustling around doing dishes and floors and laundry and toy pickup, etc. There is a VeggieTales CD in the stereo and I'm listening to kids' songs and church youth group type songs that I haven't heard in ages. Then, on comes the VT version of Michael W. Smith's song Friends Are Friends Forever. Not to date myself but I was at that MWS concert when he released that...ahem...album. And, yes, it really was an ALBUM. I think I still have it, too. Well, it was a little weird to hear the Veggie crew singing it to begin with, but I also don't think I've really listened to that song in over 20 years. It's a sweet, make you bust out in tears song and, if memory serves, it was written in response to a letter about a young girl who had passed away and the friends she left behind. Thus the lyrics, which, if you aren't familiar with them, go something like this:

Friends are friends forever, if the Lord's the Lord of them
And a friend will not say never 'cause the welcome will not end
Though it's hard to let you go in the Father's hands we know
That a lifetime's not to long to live as friends.

Moving on, the song was played at countless end of whatever's to make the girls all cry about not seeing their friends in what seemed like a lifetime but what was, in actuality, about a 3 month summer vacation. I think the song took on so many different meanings to so many different people over time and, of course, to me, today, yet another.

It made me think a lot about friends and those that stick around and those that don't. The one's that give and the one's that only take. I'd like to think that I've always given in my friendships but I'm sure there's someone out there that only saw me as a taker. I hope it's not true but I wouldn't be surprised if it were. I know I've been the giver on many occasions and I try to take my turn as the taker but sometimes it's hard to even admit that you NEED to be a taker for a moment or two lest the other see you only as that. I had one friend that I remember thinking was my best friend in the whole world. She and I just got each other or so I thought. But then there was the fateful time when I needed her; REALLY needed her and she just wasn't there for me. And then I found out from a mutual friend that, whenever we were all out together and I would leave to just go to the bathroom, all kinds of foulness would spill from her mouth about me, much of which wasn't true. I ended that relationship and it has made me sad over the years but I also realize I'm much healthier for it.

Anyway, what the song REALLY made me think about the most, though, are the friends I had when I was in college. The Bible college. The college where we were all asked/told how "good" people acted and spoke and dressed; what we were to discuss and believe and not believe and how we should respond to __________ and...the list goes on. Well, I'm not the same girl I was then in many ways but I also AM the same girl I was back then in many ways. There was an "incident" after I finished school that caused me to fall from favor in the school's eyes and I basically told them to bite me. What was interesting, though, was the reaction from my "friends". There were those that stood right by my side. Never mind how they felt about the "incident"; they believed in ME and remained my friend. Those people were not necessarily in the majority, though. No, the vast majority just quietly shunned me. People who I thought were my friends wouldn't even say hello to me. Even when I said hello to them first. It was crazy and I would like to think that it was because we were all so young really and, well, stupid. What I've found over the years, though, is that age really has nothing to do with it.

In just the last year I've had the good fortune of finding several old friends online. It's always fun to find those people that meant so much to you when you were younger that you haven't seen or heard from in years. You've spent countless moments wondering what ever became of them, where they are, what they're doing, are they married, do they have children, etc. We find each other and it's all exciting until they ask me about where life has taken me in the last 15 or so years and I tell them. And then, it seems that because I don't fit the Bible college mold (which, by the by, is severely warped) that we were all being pressed into so many years ago, I am unworthy of a response. "Oh, gosh, well, I didn't know that you actually were a sinner. If I had known that, I probably wouldn't have been friends with you in the first place. Excuse me while I avoid responding to any of your emails." Umm...like I said in a previous post, we should all, ALL of us, be wearing alphabet sweaters if we're going to start pointing out the ways in which we have fallen short of perfection.

So, yeah...

Friends are friends forever, if the Lord's the Lord of them (unless of course you admit that you sin and, in that case, the Lord isn't the Lord of your friendship????)
And a friend will not say never 'cause the welcome will not end (unless you are not perfect because then I don't want to associate myself with you because other people might think less of me and it's all about how I look to others!)
Though it's hard to let you go in the Father's hands we know (actually, it is pretty easy to flake on you but..."I'll pray for you")
That a lifetime's not too long to live as friends (unless you are caring and giving and make me laugh and have always been supportive of me but choose to be honest about what's happened to you in the last 15 years; then all bets are off)

On the flip side of all of this, though, are the friends that are still my friends; both the people that I've been in touch with all through the last 15 and those that I've reconnected with that understand that life happens and you just are who you are. Because I'm still smart and can have an intellectual conversation with you that will leave us both feeling like we didn't just waste the last half hour of our lives. Because I'm still damn funny and I can make you laugh and, chances are, you make me laugh, too; maybe even enough to make me snort or cry or pee. Because you know that you could call me in the middle of the night because you just needed someone to talk to and that I would listen. Because I'd still give to you whatever I could to make your life better. Because I still remember the value of a friend. The people that remember all of that, they are the people from my past that I'm finding mean the most to me. Why? Because they are the friends that never said never and who's welcome did not end.