Friends

We’ve all heard the sayings about the only thing certain in life are death and taxes. But there are other inevitable events that are going to take place in everyone’s life at some point. One of these events is the coming and going of people that touch us in profound ways. And such as it is with our family right now.

All throughout our lifetime people will enter our lives, stay for a period of time, and then exit only to have someone else enter through the revolving door. For instance, our pastor left our church last month to move to another church. As his family exited the revolving door our new pastor and her family entered.

One of my co-workers just left to move his wife and their new baby closer to his home and their families. Enter through the revolving door his replacement.

However, sometimes the process is not so fluid. My daughter has a best friend that is moving away to Pennsylvania this summer. They have been friends for a long time and through many adverse situations they have developed a very special bond. As a matter of fact, she has become a very important part of our family and we will all miss her very much. She has touched our lives in a special way and I hope she feels the same about us.

As she exits the revolving door of our lives and begins a new chapter in her own life, she is leaving a little bit of herself with us and taking a little part of us off to Pennsylvania with her. Through the door will come another friend, maybe for a longer period time, maybe for a shorter one, that is not up to us to decide. But I do know that this giving and receiving process shapes our lives, helps us to grow and learn, and makes us better people.

How we deal with our friends, our family members, and our co-workers is a choice we can make. We can also choose how we respond to how they treat us. I once heard Zig Ziglar tell a story about a boss who got a speeding ticket on his way back to work after lunch. When he got back he was upset and called in his top salesman and ranted about a deal he had been working on. When the salesman left the meeting he got on to the secretary who got on to the switchboard operator. When the switchboard operator went home she got on to her son who went upstairs and kicked the cat. Zig Ziglar closed the story by saying, “Now wouldn’t it have saved a lot of people a lot of grief if the boss had just driven over to the switchboard operator’s house and kicked the cat himself?” I’m not advocating kicking a cat when you’ve had a difficult time with someone, but each person in this story could have a chosen a different response to the situation. Had just one of them reacted differently anywhere up the line, they could have saved that cat a lot of grief.

Reflecting back on friends who have had an impact on me has made me want to make a more focused effort on positively affecting those who have come into my life right now as well as those who are yet to enter the revolving door. I challenge you to do the same and remember that how we react to what someone has done or said is a choice we make.

If you have a special story about a friend you’d like to share on BereaOnline, email it to us and we will try to post it here for all to enjoy.

Written by Robert New