the reason for friendship. And my Best Friend.

I realized yesterday why God gives us friends.

It's so that he can love us through other people.  Friends are one of God's means of blessing us.

And, he gives us friends so that he can bless them through us.  It's a two-way street.

I mean, even Jesus surrounded himself with just twelve men--his closest friends--and even had three very best friends out of those twelve (Peter, James and John).  If God himself needed friends while he lived on this earth, then we certainly do.

It's so important to have someone in your life who you can trust completely.  Who can trust you.  Someone who will love you for exactly who you are, but still let you know when you're being an idiot.  Someone who helps you to grow, and become the person God is shaping you to be.

It's even more of a blessing when you have several someones like that.  I'm more thankful than words can express to say that I do.  Besides just my husband, who is my very best friend, there is more than one other person who I consider a true friend.

Not all of them are people I talk to all the time.  Some of them I haven't seen in months, or even in over a year.  But when we do get together, we pick up right where we left off.

Some of them are so much like me it's scary.  Some of them are very different from me.  But they are all in my life for good reason--even if God's the only one who knows what those reasons are.

I have to be careful to remember, though, that these human relationships aren't the most important relationship in my life.  There is Someone who wants to be my Best Friend, even better than my husband.  He wants me to come to talk to him about everything.  He knows me exactly as I am, all my best and worst qualities, and he loves me anyway.

His name is Jesus.

And if he isn't your Best Friend, too, I know he wants to be.  You can just ask him to come into your life.  He'll come.  He loves you more than you can imagine.  He's better than any human friend--because he's God.  He made you.  He saved you from all the evil in the world, and in your own life, and in yourself.  He died so that you could be forgiven of every bad thing you've ever done or will do.  He rose again so that he could, someday, bring you to live with him in heaven forever.

This friend gave his life so that he could spend eternity with you.

That's a real friend.