Personal relationships are the fertile soil from which all advancement, all
success, all achievement in real life grows." -- Ben Stein
Driving into work this morning I turned on Gil’s past Sunday sermon needing a good laugh and words of
encouragement
as day 12 has left me feeling a little emotionally and physically drained. Gil’s sermon was
about
friends and the relationships of those in our
lives;
just what I needed. Gil spoke of buddies vs.
friends
vs. family. He said, buddies are people you may
grab a
beer with or share in a story with, friends
are
those people who support you and remain
loyal to you in situations, but family, family are those people
who no
matter what, are always by your side, cheering you on, encouraging you, telling
you the truth and
truly sharing in life with you. Those family friends are
the people that you open up to, that you share in
life
with and
they in return do the same to you. Listening to this I started thinking, how many of my “friends”
are just
buddies and how many are like family? I’ve always considered myself blessed by the number of
friends
that I have in my
life, but as I listened to this, I was struck with the
realization that some of those
“friends”
are just buddies,
while others are loyal friends, and
very select few are like family. Although this
may
seem discouraging,
thinking that out of my group of “friends” I only could name a handful that are like
family,
I am more than encouraged. People come into our lives for very specific reasons and they play a
certain
role in our lives while they are there. I would relate this to a football team, being the quarterback
you
carry the
team, wins, losses, it all rides on your shoulders. But even though the team
depends on you
as
the quarterback you typically have your select few that are your
go-to guys, however you need the
whole
team to win games.
Take Peyton Manning and Reggie Wayne for instance. From 2001-2010 Wayne
caught
787 passes from Manning totaling 10,748 yards and scored 69 touchdowns, to an outsider it may
have
seemed that Wayne was the only guy on the team capable of making big time plays. Let us not
forget,
Marvin Harrison, Edgerrin James, Joesph Addai,
Brandon
Stokley, all great players just not
Manning’s
go to. Aaron Rodgers has Donald Driver,
John Elway had Shannon Sharpe and Terrel Davis,
and
the Raven’s have Ray Lewis. I would argue that these
guys are not just considered buddies or
“friends”
to these organizations, but family,
however none of these guys would be what they are/were if it
were
not for the others on their team. Buddies, friends, and family all play a
significant part in our lives, we
need
each one, just as a quarterback needs lineman, and defensive ends, as much as
he needs running
backs
and wide receivers to win championships. What I am trying to say is that I am
so grateful for my
buddies
who I can grab casual beers with on a Friday night, I’m even more grateful for
those friends to
whom
I know I can share in stuff with and who will be loyal friends until the end,
but mostly I am so
thankful
for that handful of friends who are more like family to me. For they are the
ones I will do life with
forever,
they are the ones that I can count on in any and every situation, no matter how
tough or terrible.
These
family friends are supportive in all that I do and they push me to be a better
version of myself, just
by
being the wonderful selves that they are! As I mentioned, today is day 12 of 25
in Change, which means that I still have 13 more days to go. YIKES! I know if
it were not for my family friends and the 24 other advocates who fight with me
in this battle I would never have made it this far. In closing, think about
your friendships, do you have family friends? If not, I pray that you allow
yourself to open up to others and begin to form that family friendship, because
without that community, life is so much harder. As I always say, “Life was not
meant to be lived alone, if it were, God would not have created an earthly
world where we are all in this together.”
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