five minute friday: friend

Here we go again with another “Five Minute Friday” post!  To learn more about “Five Minute Friday” (FMF), check out the linked image here.  Basically, each week there’s a word given for you to write about.  You start writing, no back-tracking, editing, etc.  At the end of 5 minutes, you stop.  Then you post it, and share in the community of words that were birthed during these 24-ish hours.  It’s cool stuff.
So here’s this week’s response to the word: “friend”.

It’s a word tossed out there casually, devalued thanks to being co-opted by Facebook and the like.  (A quick glimpse of my own Facebook will tell you that I have a few over 2,000 “friends”.)  But the word can really mean a wide range of things.  I have some great friends that Facebook helps me to stay in touch with…and it’s a great way to connect with each other.

But when I think of “friend”, several great memories come to mind.  I remember playing with Ninja Turtles through elementary school.  I remember attending YMCA camps growing up, and making a friend in only a week that I felt like I’d known a long time…and then letting them go when the week was over.   I remember a “sleep-over” birthday party in 5th grade at a friends house who lived on a farm.  We watched “Drop Dead Fred”, and jumped off bales of hay.

But one of my favorite memories of “friend” comes from a more difficult moment.   I remember hanging with “the guys” back in high school.  We’d just left Chuck E. Cheese’s, and there was a disagreement of some sort brewing within our group.  We were loading into a mini-van to head to the next “thing” that night, and finally we all realized we couldn’t keep pretending everything was okay.

The doors became locked.   Someone announced we weren’t leaving that van or parking spot until things were completely talked about.  The “air was cleared” (although actually, the air became very stuffy and the windows fogged up as we waited for the actual issue to surface.

It’s a reminder to me as a parent, for sure.  My daughters will have a lot of friends as they grow older.  Some will come and go in seasons.  Some will be there long term.   But no matter what, it’s important that I remind them friendships are not always about who plays nice with you, who likes you, and who you like being around 100% of the time.  It’s the person who will have difficult conversations with you.   The person who knows something better can be acheived, and challenges us that “something” should be reached for.

It’s definitely something we see modeled in Jesus Christ….

STOP.

So help me finish that thought….where did Jesus model the difficult but necessary roles of a good friend in scripture?