Tending Your Friendship Garden

Our female friendships are the cornerstones of our lives. We need our girlfriends to love us when we can’t love ourselves, to prop us up when we can’t stand completely on our own, to cheer us on, and to support us in the way only a good friend can. Our garden of friends requires careful tending and sometimes it needs to be weeded. Grooming our friendships can be painful and awkward but it is profoundly necessary. At certain points in our lives, we outgrow people and although it is hard to admit, sometimes friends outgrow us, as well.

I had a friend who I called the sister of my heart. I truly loved her like family. She was my family, especially during the times when I wasn’t so crazy about my own! She was supportive and wonderful and was all and everything you could ask for in a friend. As the years passed and we travelled new and very different roads in our lives, I could feel things change. Our interactions became less frequent and were awkward. I found myself hesitating to share my deepest feelings with her. I could sense her doing the same thing. It was becoming obvious we were drifting and I was afraid that we were on our way to a blow up that might cause irreparable damage. I’ve learned the hard way that harsh words are like toothpaste: once it’s out of the tube, there’s no putting it back.

So I pulled away. I know she felt it and I felt awful about it. The whole situation was so troubling to me. I truly didn’t want to hurt her feelings, but what about my feelings? I have always tried to live the motto of “others before self,” but what do you do when the other is affecting youin a negative way?

People change and grow at very different speeds and in very different ways. I always took great comfort in the fact that we thought alike on so many things and especially the big things. But just as I have evolved into the person that is me, so has she. Those evolutions aren’t always going to be exactly alike and maybe not even drastically different.  She had every right to be her just as I had every right to be me. As much as I cared for her, I had to accept the fact that our lives, opinions, and the friendship that I loved so much had changed. She was there when I needed her as I was there for her, but now it was time to move on and weed the friend garden.

So I gradually and deliberately put some distance between us. Yes, it was awkward.  Yes, it felt weird. But I also knew it was necessary. As I have grown older, I’ve learned that when a friendship takes a sabbatical or ends, maybe it was time. Joel Osteen says,

“God will sometimes remove a person from our lives when their purpose is done; some people are not meant to be there forever. Some people are like scaffolding.   It’s there to hold you up til you get to the next level. But scaffolding isn’t permanent. It was there for as long as you needed it. There comes a time to move on. Recognize  when their part in your story is over. If you hang on to them, you may miss out on what God has next for you. If it’s more of a burden than a blessing, then God is telling you something. Don’t be too proud or too stubborn to see it. Recognize when the season is over.”

Joel’s words deeply resonated with me. It is perfectly okay to let go of relationships that no longer work. Some  people are meant to be in our lives for only a certain season to teach or to show us something, or maybe just to love us the way we need to be loved at that time. There is no shame or fault in that.

It was simply time to weed my friend garden and in the process, I learned something important: I was also cultivating myself. The farmer thins the weeds to make room for a more fruitful crop. Weeding is not an easy task, but it is necessary. I was doing the same thing.

I look back on our friendship with great love and affection. We were truly great friends to  one another. As much as I miss our togetherness, moving on was inevitable t. I have learned that change is never easy but it is necessary. Sometimes it’s the only way to really grow. 

Tending our Friend Garden can be difficult at times, but doing so, we are preparing ourselves for new friendships, new experiences, and new possibilities. Think of what may blossom.