I have spent my
life being friends. I have been friends to friends and friends to those who I don’t
consider so. It takes a moment to meet a friend-capable person, it takes
quality time and happenings to build a good friendship and then it takes a
lifetime to maintain the build.
I have been
humiliated, embarrassed, abused, vehemently vexed and
even desensitized being
friends with people that have chanced being on my path. I have been groomed by
Biblical principles to rather be the victimized than the victimizer even for a fleeting
breath. That however, will most times put one on the victimization listing of
many opportunists, but truth be emphasized; it feels good to know you owe no
man but have many indebted to you.
In my quest to
be a true friend I have swallowed insults and reaped heaps of messy droppings
yet I have gained far more than I seem to have lost. I have grown more than I ought
to have. It pays to remain committed to your purpose (especially the one backed
by the Truth) irrespective of how difficult it gets.
My greatest hurt
about my friends isn’t because they take advantage sometimes or they reap me
off or that they are not as sensitive as I would have wanted them to be. My greatest
hurt does not lie in the fact that their differences make conflict with my
personal disciplines. My greatest hurt does not flow in the path of them being
inconsistent with words and actions or that they find greener pasture and
forget how to spell commitment. NO! Here is what hurts…
It hurts and
really hurts bad when the one you trust is the one that betrays you! Did that
ring a bell? Please don’t think about Judas here! I am talking about us! One party
tells all the truth he/she knows and the other party keeps back the little
truth he/she has for “REASONS BEST KNOWN TO ME.”
I hurt bad when I
sense betrayal in friendship. You can be bad, inconsistent, even unrighteous
but be REAL. Be who you are!
Forgiveness is
part of my salvation package and with God, forgiveness is worth the act even
before it is sought but forgiveness would not remove the memories of a betrayal
and hence, caution would inevitably be evoked to forestall further occurrences in
such friendship or any at all.
I hurt and heal,
then I educe a statement or an act of caution to prevent the hurt, yet hurt far
more varies than the alphabets in the English language.
If you know you
would betray a friend, it’s worth losing the friendship before thinking such
thoughts. Betrayal doesn’t always come as a kiss. It forms as a thought, gets groomed
in the conscience and then acted upon according as the situation deems fit.
Betrayal is
always a deliberate effort, it’s never unconscious.
Solomon in his
God-given wisdom opines thus in Proverbs
27:6
“Faithful are
the wounds of a friend, although the kisses of an enemy are profuse”
Whatever you do,
please NEVER BETRAY A FRIEND. It makes you an ENEMY and an enemy is worse than
a bad friend.
