Mrs. B and I (Mrs. R) have been friends for almost 4 years now. I met Mrs. B when my husband (fiancé at the time) and I began attending the church that Mrs. B and her husband attended. We were attracted to each other pretty quickly because we had so much in common. We both love to read, we both enjoy discussing Biblical topics, and we both have very similar Biblical convictions.
Through the last four years our friendship has endured, even though we haven’t lived in the same state for three of the four years. The key to our long distance friendship is communication. We e-mail daily and we talk on the phone once a week.
Also, we are very respectful of each other’s schedule. We don’t even live in the same time zone, but we find a good time to talk. We talk when our husbands are at work, so that we don’t cut in on each other’s hubby time.
When we talk we try to stay positive with our conversations. We try and steer clear of gossip. We speak positively about our husbands and we don’t discuss every little detail of our marriage.
It is a very good friendship that has grown through the many events in our lives. I am very thankful for my good friend, Mrs. B.
Mrs. B~
I've always been the kind of person that has treasured my friendships. I don't take my friendships lightly and I don't have tons of friends. Oh, I have quite a few people that I like, love, care about, and would do anything for......but I like having just a few close friends. And Mrs. R is one of those few, cherished friends.
Mrs. R and I (Mrs. B) have seen a lot of changes in each other's lives in the four years of our friendship....one of those things being my husband's job change and us moving to a different state. And as she mentioned above, our friendship has endured and I think is even stronger now than ever. I've seen us both do a lot of growing up in the last 4 years and I think that is a big key......we both grew.
One of the things that Mrs. R did for me that I'll never forget is......when my husband and I moved, we had to move into a hotel, to live, for 2 1/2 months....with 2 large dogs. That was a scary thing for me......new job, moving to a state where we knew NOONE, the hotel being an hour away from where my husband's job was, so I was alone for much of the day, and pretty much being confined to the hotel room all day. Oh and I forgot to mention, all of our belongings were being stored by the moving company so I had no access to e-mail except the few times we could go to Kinkos.
We had pre-arranged to have a P.O. box so that our mail would be forwarded and when we arrived on our first day into the city we checked our P.O. box and what was waiting for me?.....a card/letter from Mrs. R! It just brightened my whole day and I remember feeling like 'This is going to be o.k.' But that's not all....she faithfully wrote to me at least once aweek and a lot of times twice a week. We became penpals. I still have every letter she wrote. I would read them over and over and it helped me to remember that even though I didn't know anyone, I still had my best friend who cared about me, missed me and wanted to keep in touch with me.
Mrs. R doesn't have the time to have her own blog but she graciously helps me with mine. If she didn't talk me through it, over the phone, I still wouldn't know how to add links to my side bar. (o; She reassured me that 'Yes, I could figure out the 'techie' stuff" and "Yes, I'll be able to think of enough stuff to write about." She is a constant source of sincere encouragement to me.
My ideas of what makes a 'true friend' have changed (and hopefully matured) over the years. Reading 'Are You Serious About Marriage', the book I posted about earlier in the week helped me to see some of my faulty thinking about friendship. I used to think that you had to tell each other 'everything' and be together quite a bit but that has not proven to be the case. Mrs. R and I have spent more of our friendship living far away from each other than we have living close, so we don't get to spend much time together. I think the distance enables us to share but not intrude. We are a part of each other's lives but we both believe and know that God and our families come before anything else. Sometimes in this modern day and age I think we have a tendancy to reveal too much and are too intertwined in each other's lives. To quote 'Are You Serious About Marriage?' Mrs. Zakula says "We have so much free time in our generation. In previous eras, women were forced to be more focused on their families. If a woman did not work morning and night, there were not clothes for the family and food to eat. Husbands were working morning and night to bring in what little monies they could. Husbands and wives were fulfilled in each other in their mutual effort to bear and rear children, and provide shelter and food. Fellowship with other women, except for wealthy folk, was pretty much limited to Sunday church or an occasional visit."
Please don't misunderstand. I'm not saying it's wrong to have friends or spend time with them. But we must be very careful that we don't neglect our families for friends and 'personal fulfillment'. I've had some unhealthy friendships in the past.......friendships where my priorities were wrong and gossip took place. Mercifully, God removed us from each other's lives.
I'm so thankful for my friendship with Mrs. R!
I'm also so thankful for my new blog friends. It's so wonderful to communicate with such like-minded sisters in Christ. (o:
