Elements of a True Friendship

          As I spend this day, Friday, I come to think of the many forms of relationship that I have in my life. Then I realised that I am such a lucky person since all throughout my life, I have established friendships with different kinds of people and lucky enough then to have maintained that friendship with them. 

          How about you, can you count through your fingers the friends that you have in your life? Can you claim one friendship that would last forever? Basically, every human being is so complex that it goes beyond eternity to fully comprehend one human person. All throughout the years, our personality becomes moulded by various factors such as upbringings, genes, environment, friendships etc.. Yes, it is very true that our friends make so much impact in our life that without our knowledge, our ways of dealing with others have been influenced by them anymore. 

          How then could we establish a lasting friendship? To answer such question, we could think of numerous factors such as presence, availability, understanding and trust. In fact, there are others that we can think of yet I just would like to focus on these shared items as my most essential ones so as to maintain and sustain a long and lasting friendship. 

A short elaboration for them would be as follows:

a. presence- what makes a friendship lasts is when both friends are generous in sharing his presence with the other party. And this is true not just on rainy days but holds true on days with stormy weathers. On the other hand, this never limits as well on a mere physical presence but somehow, the presence here is the quality one meaning it is being physically, mentally, morally, and spiritually present with the other person.

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b. availability- similar to presence, availability means that in spite of our day to day obligations, duties, schedules, priorities etc., we should still be able to make ourselves available to our friends. As commonly stated, if we truly value our friendship with others, we should also learn to make ourselves available to cherish the friendship.

c. understanding- in any relationship like friendship, the trait of understanding should be developed, practiced and nurtured. Being able to completely understand the other person is rather a challenging task since we carry along with us our different idiosyncrasies and at times, some of these are challenging for others. However, when we truly consider any friend as a real friend, we subsequently are ready to accept everything on him both his positive and negative characteristics. 

d. the last but not the least on my list, the trust element- an important ingredient that goes along with the ones beforehand, trust is considered as very worthwhile since it measured the level of the established friendship. With a true friend, one can be assured that trust is present and that whatever is shared between the two friends are secured and kept hidden just between both parties. The development of trust takes a while thus the moment that it is destroyed, it is burdensome to repair it. 

Hence with all these elements, can you consider yourself now as one true friend? Lucky you are if you can and lucky your friends for having you as one true friend. 

                                               

Resting in God's Peace

          As we have just recently celebrated the All Souls Day and offered prayers for the faithful departed, it is but fitting for us  to reflect on the significance of this element of resting in our life. Oftentimes, when death comes to a person, we usually say or write, RIP which means "Resquiescat in Pace" or "Rest In Peace". A little of history about this practice happened in the eight century when it became ubiquitous on the tombs of Christians as well as for the High Church Anglicans and the Roman Catholics in particular." - Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 

          As such, we are therefore constantly reminded that everything on this earth is but temporal and that at a certain point in our life, we will come to terms with our own death. Thus there is that consistent invitation for us all to be always ready when death comes and in some cases, it does in an unexpected manner just like a thief in the night. 

When it comes time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song, and die like a hero going home. - Chief Aupumut, Mohican -

                              Source: http://www.a-good-dying.com/rest-in-peace-quotes.html

          From a sharing with my friend Pong, I was fortunate enough to be reminded with the following insights as extended also by their pastor in their congregation. A few of those are the following:

a. The Essence of the Sabbath Day:

It is therefore good to note that the Sabbath Day is basically not just one of those days in our calendar year but somehow, this day is entirely a day that is intended for mankind to offer prayers and good deeds for the Creator. Moreover, as He rested on this day after creating the universe in six days,  He also invites His people to devote a day of rest and prayer. It further denotes our reality as being challenged to establish and sustain a loving relationship with our Creator therefore we also return to Him during our moment of death. 

b. Contentment in God: 

We oftentimes worry greatly on numerous things like our daily provisions, health, day to day activities, children, studies, etc. that consequently, we time after time neglect our very basic relationship with Him Above. Most of the times, we worry so much on what is temporal and forget what is eternal. At certain events in life, we stress ourselves on what is seemed as unnecessary and just wants in life disregarding on the process the more essential things such as our time with God and times with our other loved ones. 

c. Acknowledgement of God Being our Creator:

As human beings, we are created in His own image and likeness therefore initially goodness in our hearts is intrinsically in our nature. However, when we start to use our own free will and intellect, that signals the commence of our commission of things both desirable and not therefore with the undesirable deeds, we are allowing ourselves to become astray from our Creator. 

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          The moment then that we die, we would never carry along with us any of these temporal and earthly possessions. However the only treasures that we can carry with us when we die are those good deeds that we have implanted in our hearts. We will be judged on heaven by these possessions and never on any earthly richness.  However if we live a life worthy of praise and adorations then we can be rest assured that on our moment of death, our Creator will be waiting to welcome us into His fold. 

          Hence, let us learn to live life to its fullest as well as live it according to His plan. Though we falter in certain chapters on this journey yet we should also be humble enough to realise our limitations and offer to return back to His fold.  

P. s. much gratitude to Pong for the sharing