Friendship: Sweet as Perfume

"The heartfelt counsel of a friend is as sweet as perfume and incense."
 - Proverbs 27:9

.

Our two oldest daughters are in 4th & 6th grade. Since moving to our new home, they have become friends with two other little girls in town, and recently, the four decided they would start a club. They gave each other code names, and special bracelets, and they write secret letters and make secret plans to somehow take over the world. I've enjoyed watching all of this happen from afar, thinking ahead to the girls growing up together, knowing these neighbor girls will grow up in my home too, and that these are the girls that will become monumental in helping my daughters develop good friendships, and understand the meaning of being a good friend.

This age group of girls is hard, though, because middle schoolers their age are all filled up with hormonal changes, identity crisis, and childish ways that are still unshed. I think I could safely sum this up in one word: "drama". They haven't learned to be cruel or downright nasty like high schoolers, but if given the right circumstance, they can still cause pain.

Today, one of those circumstances arose. The girls were all on the bus ride home, and somehow, for some reason, someone said that so-and-so didn't like so-and-so, and before anyone knew it, so-and-so was crying and saying she didn't want to be in the club anymore! Of course, by the time I heard the story, it had quite a few interpretations, and all of them were crummy, leaving one little 10 year old girl in tears, humiliated in front of her peers. Because the two stories I heard didn't line up with each other, I'm still unsure of what exact roles my girls played in the ordeal, but it made me see how quickly friendship can go sour, and how badly I didn't want my girls to be bad friends.

.

Have you ever thought about what kind of friend God wants you to be? 

The Bible tells us that the "counsel of a good friend is like perfume", a sweet aroma, encouraging to the soul. We know then, that our words matter. Our words can either be sweet, or bitter, uplifting or cutting. Our friendship can either build up, creating trust and devotion, or we can tear down, creating a broken spirit. 

We know that God has created friendship and companionship for a unique purpose, allowing love and closeness between two people that are otherwise not related. Friendship is such a special and unique gift, because it joins the hearts and souls of two people, linking them through a shared life, through shared experiences. 

As Christian friends, we are called to be godly. We are called to love unconditionally, forgive whole-heartedly, and steer our friends on the right path, knowing that God has extended that friendship to us. 

.

Tomorrow is a new day, with a new bus ride to school, and new drama on the playground, but it's up to us to decide ahead of time what kind of friend we're going to be. Will you be the kind of friend who devastates, or will you be sweet and good for the soul like "ointment'?

It's up to us what kind of friendships we fill our lives with, because those friendships start with our hearts, and good can only overflow from good, and bad from bad. 

Let the sweet aroma that our LORD fills you up with, overflow from your heart today, and see how the friendships around you change. I promise you they will.