Who is your best friend? How do you know if they’re your best friend? It’s a hard matter; everyone has different ideas on what constitutes a BFF.
For me, a best friend is someone who I can talk to about everything. It’s someone who I feel comfortable telling my deepest secrets and darkest thoughts. On the flip side, if I consider them my best friend, I want to know if they consider me their best friend.
In my 17 years, I’ve had two best friends. At my old school, BFF #1 swapped my friendship to become the queen bee of our class’s best friend. At my new school, I learned BFF #2 other didn’t consider me her best friend.
In both cases, I lost my best friend, but gained new experiences. Now, in my final year of high school, I’ve been reflecting on all of my friendships.
I had staked my self-worth in my best friends- I was a good person when I pleased them, I was worthless when they got mad at me. This isn’t healthy, and it isn’t right. I didn’t realize I did this until BFF #1 left me in freshman year. It’s in the silence that God does his best work.
Currently, I have many friends and acquaintances, a few extremely close friends, and zero best friends. This revelation struck me in the middle of Mass.
There was a pattern: I regarded someone as my best friend, and then discovered they didn’t think I was theirs. God was telling me something.
I am currently planning to be a missionary- a TESOL teacher, ministering in a foreign country. I’ll be alone most of the time, and contact with my friends and family may be limited. So how does all this connect with a best friend?
God wants to be my best friend. Nobody else. The Bible says to love one another, and I do love my friends. But looking back at whom I considered my best friends, I realize that I was paying more attention to them, then to God.
God wants us all to have friends. The Bible is filled with verses of the strength of friendships. But the friendships shouldn’t take away our focus from the one true friend, God. Yet that was exactly what happened with both of my best friends.
If I am to be a missionary, I will be isolated from my family and friends. So who will I lean on as a best friend? God!
This wasn’t an easy revelation. I am a physical person; I love to hug my friends and send them photos, just to assure myself they’re real.
To have God as my best friend, an intangible being, someone whom I talk to out loud and in my head but have yet to physically hear, will be harder to adjust to.
My best friend is God, and I know He’s my best friend because He made me. He knows my every thought and action, good and bad. I tell Him my worries and secrets, and He already knows every single one. But He still loves me. Why shouldn’t I accept Him as my best friend?
So, who is your best friend?
Until next time!
A dangerous ray of sunshine signing off.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and
lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways acknowledge Him,
and He will make your paths straight.” (Proverbs 3:5-6)
