Shadows or Shoes?

Fake friends are like shadows, always near at your brightest moments, but nowhere to be seen in your darkest hours.

In a few days, it will be marked as the one year anniversary that I lost a good friend.  Not by death, sometimes I think that may have been easier to handle, but by choice.  I choose to not continue our friendship because I realized that I had been fooled to believe she was a "good" friend.  I could write an entire blog about disappointments and struggles that I have been dealing with this last year, but instead I choosing to write about the friends that I feel meet my requirements.

First of all, I would like to start out by saying my husband is my very best friend.  There's no other person I rather spend my day with.  Rather it's sitting around the house doing nothing, going on an adventure, or sometimes sitting in the snow watching him play softball.  He knows my thoughts, my struggles, my pet peeves, my stress relievers, he knows all.  In fact, around our house, he will say what's your bubble thinking because I'm more of a girl that thinks internally and doesn't say much out loud.  Sometimes I think I scare him a little with my thought process!  He makes me feel normal, he makes me feel loved, he makes me feel safe, he makes me feel worthy.  He truly makes me see that I'm not alone in this battle called life.  I truly love this man and I know he loves me.

Then, there is my old childhood friend, Shellie.  I can't remember how many years we have been friends, but all my school memories have her in them.  Of course, we have had our ups and downs, mainly in school but we always talked things out and embraced our differences.  When I read the sayings about true friends not speaking for years, then when they see each other or talk with one another it's like they never have been apart....I think of Shellie.   I KNOW that I could call her today and we would be chatting like time had never been between us.  We are both Mama's to 3 children, wives to busy husbands, and women who love the Lord and try to live like Jesus.  Occasionally we will send a message to one another, short and sweet basically saying thought of you today.  I think it's our way of saying, I love you and I'm glad we have each other.  Neither one of us are over affectionate people, I would say we are both introverts, but we "get" each other. If she needed me today, I would drop everything I had planned and make the trip.  I know she would do the same.

Lastly, is my good friend Jean.  Sometimes I think we were separated by birth.  We have both struggled with dysfunctional families.  We have both struggled with parenting our sassy girls.  We have both struggled with trust issues.    Yet, God has placed us in each other lives, not to join forces to bitch and moan about our lives, but to fight evil and try to sharpen iron with iron to become the women that God has called us to be.  We call each other out when our doubts about life surface to make our attitudes unbearable.  We praise each other over accomplishments that might seem minor to the world, but we know it was major to our self worth.  We have prayed. cried, laughed with each other more times than I can remember and I'm thankful that I have someone in my life who challenges me to be a better woman, wife, and mother.

I'm thankful for my friends. I'm thankful that they are not like shadows who leave me in times of darkness, but they are like my favorite pair of shoes who make my journey more comfortable while I travel through valleys and hills in this thing called life.