U R My Friend, so I promise:
- to love you when you are messy and life is messy and things are hard.
- to believe in the best of you even when you’ve made mistakes.
- to lean in and listen to your heart, and hold you when you need it.
- to be a sounding board who doesn’t always echo back unless you want me to.
- to make it all about you sometimes, to forget my needs and lift yours extra high.
- to be honest with you, to tell you the truth in the right way at the right time, prayer be the guard over my lips.
- to pick up the phone and call you when I need to hear your voice.
- to pick up the phone when I know you need to hear mine.
You are my Friend, so I promise …
- to trust you have my best interest at heart – to be vulnerable, knowing I may get hurt.
- to respect your need for time or silence or space.
- to wait when you need me to wait.
- to stop talking when you say stop.
- to give you room to breathe when you need it.
- to figure out your buttons and not push them.
- to respect you at all times (even when you are not respecting yourself).
- to remember that you are but grass, here one day and gone tomorrow. Since tomorrow is promised to no one, I promise to make your day brighter because I’m in it.
- to help you write your legacy, build your dreams, and become all that you can be.
- to pray for you, even when you hurt me, or leave me wounded and longing for your presence.
- to love you without condition, but to do what is best for me too, and if that means letting you go — know that I will miss you, that I am FOR you always, and I will still be your friend if you need one.
- to help you find God’s best path for you, knowing that perfection isn’t the goal, but excellence is.
- to help you grow and become the person God has destined you to be.
- to be thankful for you, and to let you know the ways you’ve blessed my life and made it richer because you’ve been in it.
U R My Friend, so I promise.
We are doing a lot of talking about friendship around the Strickland home as of late, with our daughter being 13 and all. One of our goals this year is to be better friends. If that’s yours too, feel free to share this poem with someone you consider a friend.
(the photograph of the dancing girls is by my friend, Rebecca Friedlander, of God’s Image Photography, who produced the documentary about my story.)
Love,
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