A Best Friend

We all have casual friends, people we gather with for activities.Then there are the milestone friends, people from our past with whom we share common stories. Along the way we select a few mentor friends who inspire us and bless us and give us their wisdom. However, we have few best friends. Best friends know each other's strengths and weaknesses. They know the secrets, and they keep the secrets. And best friends are there during crisis times. Friendship at this level requires lots of time and complete reciprocity. In other words, it's impossible to be best friends with someone who is not best friends with you. Your marriage relationship is designed to transform men and women into best friends. Although your initial attraction may have been hormonal or casual, becoming best friends gives your sexual relationship energy. Without this energy from the growing friendship, sexual intimacy will die. Marriage has a way of making us choose to be best friends - or not. Building a best friend relationship takes both time and the willingness to risk. We can choose to let the crisis moments tear off the masks we wear, or we can allow our spouses to help us take the masks off, one layer at a time. The quicker we get past the pretension and fearfulness, the faster we can get on track to becoming best friends before a crisis hits. When best friends are married to each other for a long time, they can finish each other's sentences. They know each other's thoughts, beliefs, and expectations. As close friends, they share feelings, intentions, goals, motives, needs, successes, and failures. When crisis times come, we each need a trusted friend who will listen and understand and help us find what we need to deal with the crisis. The trusted companion is the one who knows us better than any other and can help when in time of need (Hugs for those in Love, by Ron and Lyn Rose). If your lonely for a best friend.....Jesus can fill that role like no other. Sherry