in the fire

Friendship is a weird thing. Great friends share life together; the hurts, the joys, the laughter, the tears. It can be the only constant our life may have. That person or persons with whom we can be our most true self. But friendship is ever changing too. Sometimes without warning. Our interests no longer coincide, our lives take different directions or we simply make new friends, better friends and move on. The intimacy once shared is tucked into a memory box and forgotten.

It is a glorious gift from the Lord, people to walk through this world with. But I think it is the hardest thing too. To love and let go, to be never given a promise of an outcome. To never really be sure if the ones you love the most, whom you have let in to the out of reach places of your soul, will be the ones to hurt you the deepest. In a way that seems inevitable. We can only be really hurt in the heart if we have let someone in it. And real friendship only exists if we do. This glorious gift from above seems not only intended for the pleasures that friendship affords, but to refine us in the process of sharing life as well.

My prayer for a while now has settled on the refinement of who I am. That the Lord would move my life in such a way that I would be sanctified and be more like Him. It is not always an easy prayer to pray. Being refined is like metal in the fire. The heat is on as He shapes me over the flames of this life and the people He has surrounded me with. All of it to seemingly challenge my comfortable place in this world and the comfortable me I have too long been contented to be.

I have sometimes wondered why I maintain friendships I have felt to be long existing in shallow water. There have been moments of drifting away from shore, but we always seem to find ourselves able to touch again, back where it is safe. I have wondered why sometimes those who I should know best we knowingly maintain such a safe distance from depth, for years on end. Is it possible to really love someone but not really know them? Is it possible to look into some one's eyes and know what they are thinking, but we don't know and share how we came to be this guilt stained God cleansed person standing in front of each other? I don't know, maybe.

Then sometimes I think it is that love that keeps us from going too far in. What if the person inside is not who we profess to be? Is it safe enough to be real and unguarded? Is it safe enough to trust that they will handle me with care and not get cut on my broken pieces?

Recently a friend exposed a fault of mine. It was indirectly honest, there was no intent for me to be made aware of it, but I am and like most truth it hurts. I don't think I necessarily disagree either. Which of course makes it all worse. To have a flaw so brutally exposed, my pride so dented and damaged. As a little time has passed it is with some perspective I can write these words, with some degree of un-bias I know that indeed I am being refined.

It is, however, a funny and maybe slightly tragic, study of the human heart to replay the thoughts that cascaded through me in the moment of exposure. I wondered if this friendship was worth fighting for. Could somebody feel that way about me and really care? After all the disagreements we have had, all the times we have annoyed each other. After all the time we have spent so far from from the deep end. Should I just walk away?

But then I remembered the laughter, the joy, the elements that make this friendship great. I remembered my prayer to be refined, and that God does not promise it won't hurt to become more like Him. I remembered Grace, and that it thankfully covers us all. But mostly, as I thought of giving up the fight-I remembered that the people we love are worth fighting for and that I would rather be over the fire than sitting on the shore.