Expectations

God healed a relationship that was pretty much at death's door, one that was/is extremely important to my life. Part of my struggle in that friendship was my expectations and the fact that those expectations were not being met. It was not that she was not a good friend to me, she has been one of the best friends of my life, but for two years she wasn't living up to what I wanted from her. The walls grew and the hurt multiplied on both sides, and any time I saw her, the wound throbbed. Finally we talked about all of it and the walls came down, yet we were both different.

This trial taught me that one friend does not have to meet every need in my life. God has given me many amazing friendships, many that I value more than I can say, so all of my “girlfriend” needs don’t have to be fulfilled by one person. It is much healthier that way.

I realized that every time I meet with one friend we talk about God and what He is doing in our lives. With another friend I find the real of life as we share about our families, our trials, and our successes. With another I talk about the struggles of homeschooling as well as the joys. I talk lots of politics with another and so on. The greatest aspect of each of these relationships is our deep faith, but that commonality manifests itself in very different ways with each. Once I stopped demanding (not audibly and not always realizing it) that my friend fill every role in my heart I was able to release her to be who she is in my life, to be my friend.

It is when we replace the one who is our true "best friend" with one of our friends that we run into problems. We do this with our husbands at times, setting them up on the throne of our hearts, and even with our children. Any time we replace Christ with another person or thing, we end up dissatisfied, hurt, alone, angry, and empty. The only one who can meet our deepest needs is our Savior and Lord, but He isn't going to meet our expectations either. He will surpass them, beyond all that we can hope or imagine.