Beauty of friendship

What do you think of when you think of friendship?

I think of kindred spirits, hearts bonded together because of common threads in life. Unconditional love. Understanding. An open home and an open heart. Trust. Comfort.  (I could insert a picture of me with a few others but this is the friend I have said goodbye to most recently.)

I once thought it would be difficult to find friendship in Ethiopia. After all, how could I find friends like the ones I had left behind?

I don't have a neighbourhood of women like me, I can't just pick up the phone and call and meet for coffee. Yet God has always provided. It may not be daily. It may not be weekly. It may not even be monthly but God has given me dear friends even here. I have friends of different cultures and language groups and God has clearly brought us together to strengthen and encourage each other. Some I only see 3 times a year and some much less.

It would be easy to harden my heart. Goodbyes are so difficult and so frequent. Yet i know. When I start to withhold my heart from friendship, my heart will die. And so I give and I receive and it hurts.

But God uses us to sharpen one another, to spur each other on to love and good deeds, to love our spouses more deeply and understand our children more fully. And with this we reach out again to others who also have said goodbye to loved ones.

 This month, I said farewell to two more dear friends who will leave Ethiopia in the next couple of weeks. God graciously gave us a full week with the Hamilton family. A family with 4 girls uniquely bonded to our girls. A week of homeschooling, riding, swimming, singing, praying, laughing, eating, playing and visiting. A storehouse of memories. Children with many common threads. Love of horses. Age. Homeschooled. Rural Ethiopia. Grandpas with cancer. Love for Jesus. Kindred friends.

My children love and are loved and my prayer is that they will continue to love. I grew up with the same classmates for 13 years. Many of these friends, still live near my hometown. This will not be my children's experience. Growing up in Ethiopia, their friends are from all over the world. They say goodbye over and over again. Many they will not meet again on this earth.

I could despair of friendship but I don't. For these friendships have made us rich. Rich in culture and rich in love. True kindred friendship does not change over the years and over the miles. And when our life on earth is done, we will see what a gift friendship has been. And then there is Jesus. And I wonder. Maybe my kindred friends are far from me so that I see more clearly that all I really need is Jesus. My lifelong kindred friend.