Frinemies!
Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art.... It
has no survival value;
Thanks for
joining us for Coffee Hour @ Chicklit Power and Faith Filled Friday with Trench
Classes United. Grab your coffee and your Strand of Faith and come on in. I
hope what is shared today will go with you this weekend and follow you into any
kind of conflict you find yourself in with a friend whom you may now consider
an enemy, aka, a frienemy! J
Have you
ever watched children in conflict? There is actually something to be learned by
observing their struggle with innocence and their juggling of their little cups
of pride that spill out onto the one they are conflicted with or by. There is
this sort of bittersweet thing about them as they wiggle through the conflict.
I got to
watch how littles handle conflict at one of our grandson’s birthday parties a
while back. Of course, everyone wanted to be around him and it was pretty
interesting to watch him trying to juggle all the attention, especially since
he was the birthday boy and everyone wanted to be his number one friend. Well,
there was this one friend there who was insistent upon him paying more
attention to her. It was kind of funny, in a peculiar sort of way and in other
ways, not so funny. As I watched them, I marveled at the truth that we as
adults can be so like children, except – and this is a big one – they still
have a blanket of innocence around them and they get over conflict soooo much
quicker!
Watching
this very assertive little girl and how little B handled her attention was like
witnessing the acting out of Colossians 3:12a-13 which tells us “to put on tender mercies, kindness humility,
meekness, longsuffering, bearing with one another and forgiving one another if
anyone has a complaint against the other, even as Christ forgave you, so you
must do.”
Let me try
and paint this picture verbally: As the party progressed, this girl, who by the
way little B says “She’s a girl and she’s a friend, but she’s not my
girlfriend” J – rather aggressively demanded her way. At first he ignored her; that didn’t work.
Then he tried appeasing her; that worked for a New York minute. And then as
these things didn’t accomplish her desired goal, the conflict escalated and
they began to sort of toss their point of view across to the other in hopes
that the other would catch it. But then, a burst of innocence would happen and
one of them would stop it with a hug, or a simple “I’m sorry,” and the conflict
was over. All was forgiven…until the next time she, or he, didn’t get their way,
or the other felt slighted or ignored and not special and then the tug of war
began all over again.
His other grandma, whom my heart loves, and I
were talking about it and she called them “frien-emies” and that stuck with me;
you can’t be an enemy unless you’ve been
a friend first! Think about it; we aren’t nearly as hurt or offended by a
stranger’s behavior as we are by the behavior of one whom we love or care
deeply for.
Why can’t we
be more like children, and get through the conflict with a simple “I’m sorry”?
Why does it seem to require so much more as we get older?
Maybe it’s
time to consider the value that that frien-emy brings to our life…and if
there’s more conflict than caring, maybe it’s time to evaluate the amount of
space they take up in our hearts without paying rent…
True
transformation can only happen with another and that’s the value that a friend
brings!
Love,
Evinda
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