Our Theory of Friendship

by Lydia Nolan

© October 31, 2022

“A friend sticks to, through thick or thin,

If they don’t, then, they don’t understand the true meaning of a friend.”

~Lydia Nolan

Families usually do not encompass friendship. Being raised with a number of family members, especially if we are raised in a dysfunctional family, they do not usually want to be reminded of the many little hurts and pains experienced in that segment of growing up. So we turn to friends we meet, in school, church, groups of similar interests, and to a certain extent they become our new family. It's much easier to extricate ourselves from them (we think), if we have a fallout with them. It is easier to just stop talking to those "friends" that were a surrogate family, and who now become nothing to us. But is that really true? Are there no scars from those fallouts? Are there reminders within those fallouts of the original family fallouts that led to what we call carrying baggage or leading to being jaded?

Oddly, we don't usually remember the positive experiences we have had when we were being raised in our family setting. Oddly, we are unable to forgive too, our family members for wrongs, even though we forgive lovers, some friends, and even strangers we read about or watch on TV, for something they have done or neglected to do. 

But we have trouble remembering good in family, and we have trouble forgiving our family members as easily as we do those outside of our family dynamics. If we don't forgive we cannot ignore that there is something inside ourselves that have problematic areas in our human compartments that affect our future behaviors, endeavors, relationships. Oh, we can ignore in ourselves yet point out critically in others, those unforgiving behaviors, critical Judgments. We are human, which means we fall short of, or are sinful and erroneous in our thinking, even in our emotional and intellectual perspectives because sin is forever before us, whether ourselves or others we encounter. It's not your fault, it's not my fault, but it is a true fact, that human flesh is a sinful being itself, and while we walk in this world, with these bodies, we will encounter trouble. 

I learned through coming to faith in Jesus Christ how beautiful it is to forgive, and how beautiful it is not only to forgive others, but forgive ourselves for all the public and secret things we may have done or had done to us. So when I say a friend is one who sticks to you through thick as well as thin, or they are not a friend, it is very true. But do not take it wrong. It doesn't mean we should hate those who can't support us as we need. It doesn't mean we should forgive only those who ask for it, and not those who don't. It doesn't mean if we ourselves can't make it through a friendship, that we are unforgivable. What it does mean is we have diluted the true meaning of friendship. This concept applies to marriage as well. I might venture to say, especially marriage.
True friendship is an unconditional love we ourselves cannot do, nor do we have it ourselves. But only through a greater source can we transcend our own weak flesh. Only through a greater source can we transcend ANYthing or ANYome's weaknesses or troubles. We cannot do it ourselves, no matter how much you say you can, you cannot. There will be someplace in your memory or experiences where someone else touches that hurt and you will hate them for it. But don't be dismayed. God is love, and love was born on earth to show us how to love like God. And if we cannot do it, just remember Jesus did it by forgiving every one of those humans that didn’t understand him, that used him only for his fame or food, or to gain prestige, and finally those he loved and taught who murdered him. He forgave every one of those types of humans, and then He showed the the way to an everlasting body that will not falter. Jesus is SUPERMAN in reality, born on a day we celebrate as Christmas Day, to bring us the example of a perfect person in flesh, breathed into flesh from the creator God, and can transform us through his Holy Spirit. Only Jesus can give you that perfectness, but you will never have it without holding on to this Man/God, Jesus Christ.

There is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother ~Proverbs 18:24

No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you. ~ (said Jesus) John 15:15