Turn, Turn, Turn 5

For everything there is a season,

and a time to every purpose under heaven.

A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;

A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing.

Ecclesiastes 3:1,5

I can still remember the time in my young life when I first realized that not everyone liked me – a very hurtful fact for a child, but one that we all experience.  For whatever reason, there is always someone in the crowd who delights in embarrassing you, making your life miserable, or just dishing out sheer meanness. Somewhere along the line, I learned that I needed to know how to build a good wall – a personal wall that kept the offenders out and my sanity and self-esteem within. 

After a while, the wall became a defensive mechanism – staunchly in place “just in case” I happened to be around someone that needed to be kept at bay.  What a joy, then, to meet an individual who proved to be true, honest, trustworthy, loyal, and a real friend – someone for whom the stones of the wall could be dismantled.  

When my middle daughter was a young lass, she had the kind of personality who never met a stranger.  She embraced anyone and everyone with equal charity, believing that the world was a good and wholesome place populated with wonderful kids like her.  It was difficult to watch her pure optimism diminish under the harsh truth that there is, indeed, a time to refrain from embracing.  True friends are a rare commodity and we clasp them to our hearts with joy.  False friends rip and tear through the fabric of our being, and we must abstain from a close embrace and gather wall stones again.

What kind of a friend would you like to have?  What kind of a friend would you like to be?   My prayer is that we each will live our lives today so that no one feels the need to gather stones and build a wall against us.