I am blessed. I am blessed in so many ways.  One is, I have the best friends in the World.  I just got back from spending a great weekend at the Lake with several of my college girl friends.  The Lord has blessed me with friends that love and support me no matter where in the World I go.  They challenge, uplift, pray, cry, and celebrate with me.  Don't you wish we could cross crying together off that list, and only needed friends to celebrate with?  Truth is - real life is full of all sorts of emotions, up and downs, celebrations and heartaches, and we need the grace and joy of a savior, first, but God has also given friends and companions on our journey.

Our walk with Christ, is just that, it is OUR walk with Christ.  No one else can be in OUR relationship with Christ, its just Jesus and me.  That being said, I believe God has designed us to be in relationships, all to teach us how to be in relationship with Him.

When I think about Godly friendship, I think first about Christ's friends on Earth, His disciples.  They were by no means "perfect" friends, but they did bring Him closer to His Father, enouraged and challenged Christ, and their words still challenge and encourage us today.

One of my favorite pictures of friendship in the Bible, is in Luke Chapter 15.  Jesus is teaching through a parable.  In this parable, a shephard has lost one of his sheep - he searches and searches, and finally finds the sheep.  He is overjoyed at his fotrune, and what does he do? The Bible says "he calleth together his friends and neighbours, saying unto them, Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost." (v. 6) 


This story is about Christ rejoicing over our salvation, about how much more He rejoices when a "sheep" that is lost, becomes found.  And even so, the parable says that Christ rejoices with his friends.  I am blessed to have friends to rejoice with.  I praise God for friends who, because they love God first, are able to love me, just the way God has created me :)