Testing Friendship Quotes

The shifts of fortune test the reliability of friends.

The only true test of friendship is the time your friend spends on you.

It's true: lives do drift apart for no obvious reason. We're all busy people,we can't spend our time simply trying to stay in touch. The test of a friendship is if it can weather these inevitable gaps.

Everybody I know fails the acid test of friendship.

Friendship is an Algebra test that nobody passes.

The test we must set for ourselves is not to march alone but to march in such a way that others will wish to join us.

There is something in the unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a brute, which goes directly to the heart of him who has had frequent occasion to test the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere Man." ~ 'The Black Cat.

their relationship was built on friendship, and in matters of friendship he was boundlessly loyal. It was a relationship that would survive the harshest test.

You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity.

This isn't going to be pretty. Rules will be broken. Friendships will be tested. And huge risks will be taken. But they're small prices to pay for true love and freedom, right?

In every friendship, at some point comes a test. Never before in my experience, however, had it involved food.

A relationship that is truly genuine does not keep changing its colors. Real gold never rusts. If a relationship is really solid and golden, it will be unbreakable. Not even Time can destroy its shine.

Friendship is something that gets harder to understand, every damn year of my life.Friendship is like a kind of algebra test that nobody passes. In my worst moods, I think the best you can say is that a friend is anyone you don't despise.

Is this what it's like to get close to other people--you do something insane together and then you have to share everything even if you don't really want to?

Friends disappear or they are powerless. This is what misfortune means an acid test of friendship. I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

If there is one thing I can brag about and be proud of in my life, it’s my dedication to friendship. If I call you a friend, I mean it. You are now on par with being a family member. Friendships are not made overnight; it takes time, effort, and energy. For me, friendships are tested not in the best of times, but in the worst of times. You don’t always get a second chance to be there for someone when they really need you. So when I say I will be there, I mean it.

Keeping the door that leads to your heart ajar is destructive as univited guests would move in and trample on your feelings, leaving you in great pains, but closing it always is a sure way to spot out the destructive and innovative guests.

I decided that not talking is like a litmus test for a real friend. You can just sit there and be. Not always be filling up the air with words

The government didn't care about her, the schools didn't, the scholarship organizations didn't, but this one person did, and sometimes one person could make a world of difference.

Friends stick by each other when one is down. That is a true test of friendship. But sometimes, it is harder to stick by a friend who is up. That is the ultimate test of friendship.

Friendship is held to be the severest test of character. It is easy, we think, to be loyal to a family and clan, whose blood is in your own veins.

A man worth being with is one… That never lies to you Is kind to people that have hurt him A person that respects another’s life That has manners and shows people respect That goes out of his way to help people That feels every person, no matter how difficult, deserves compassion Who believes you are the most beautiful person he has ever met Who brags about your accomplishments with pride Who talks to you about anything and everything because no bad news will make him love you less That is a peacemaker That will see you through illness Who keeps his promises Who doesn’t blame others, but finds the good in them That raises you up and motivates you to reach for the stars That doesn’t need fame, money or anything materialistic to be happy That is gentle and patient with children Who won’t let you lie to yourself; he tells you what you need to hear, in order to help you grow Who lives what he says he believes in Who doesn’t hold a grudge or hold onto the past Who doesn’t ask his family members to deliberately hurt people that have hurt him Who will run with your dreams That makes you laugh at the world and yourself Who forgives and is quick to apologize Who doesn’t betray you by having inappropriate conversations with other women Who doesn’t react when he is angry, decides when he is sad or keep promises he doesn’t plan to keep Who takes his children’s spiritual life very seriously and teaches by example Who never seeks revenge or would ever put another person down Who communicates to solve problems Who doesn’t play games or passive aggressively ignores people to hurt them Who is real and doesn’t pretend to be something he is not Who has the power to free you from yourself through his positive outlook Who has a deep respect for women and treats them like a daughter of God Who doesn’t have an ego or believes he is better than anyone Who is labeled constantly by people as the nicest person they have ever met Who works hard to provide for the family Who doesn’t feel the need to drink alcohol to have a good time, smoke or do drugs Who doesn't have to hang out a bar with his friends, but would rather spend his time with his family Who is morally free from sin Who sees your potential to be great Who doesn't think a woman's place has to be in the home; he supports your life mission, where ever that takes you Who is a gentleman Who is honest and lives with integrity Who never discusses your private business with anyone Who will protect his family Who forgives, forgets, repairs and restores When you find a man that possesses these traits then all the little things you don’t have in common don’t matter. This is the type of man worth being grateful for.

People come in and out of our lives, and the true test of friendship is whether you can pick back up right where you left off the last time you saw each other.

I swiftly realised how grief sorts out and realigns those around the griefstruck; how friends are tested; how some pass, some fail. Old friendships may deepen through shared sorrow; or suddenly appear lightweight.

...Novels--which, after all, are training grounds for responding to the world, imaginative sanctuaries in which to hone and test our ethical judgments and choices.

The vacancy in your heart doesn't connotes that nobody is seeking for the job of servicing your feelings, but because the employee must first have all the necessary credentials needed for the job.

that sometimes marriages are like friendships that get tested, and people have to work through things.

Grandmomma always said people were like tacos—the harder they were, the easier they broke. Being soft meant being adaptive, more flexible. “When you’re soft, you can contain more. And if you contain more, the world can’t break you.

Developing Christlike attributes in our lives is not an easy task, especially when we move away from generalities and abstractions and begin to deal with real life. The test comes in practicing what we proclaim. The reality check comes when Christlike attributes need to become visible in our lives—as husband or wife, as father or mother, as son or daughter, in our friendships, in our employment, in our business, and in our recreation. We can recognize our growth, as can those around us, as we gradually increase our capacity to 'act in all holiness before [Him]' (D&C 43:9).

Very often the test of one's allegiance to a cause or to a people is precisely the willingness to stay the course when things are boring, to run the risk of repeating an old argument just one more time, or of going one more round with a hostile or (much worse) indifferent audience. I first became involved with the Czech opposition in 1968 when it was an intoxicating and celebrated cause. Then, during the depressing 1970s and 1980s I was a member of a routine committee that tried with limited success to help the reduced forces of Czech dissent to stay nourished (and published). The most pregnant moment of that commitment was one that I managed to miss at the time: I passed an afternoon with Zdenek Mlynar, exiled former secretary of the Czech Communist Party, who in the bleak early 1950s in Moscow had formed a friendship with a young Russian militant with an evident sense of irony named Mikhail Sergeyevitch Gorbachev. In 1988 I was arrested in Prague for attending a meeting of one of Vaclav Havel's 'Charter 77' committees. That outwardly exciting experience was interesting precisely because of its almost Zen-like tedium. I had gone to Prague determined to be the first visiting writer not to make use of the name Franz Kafka, but the numbing bureaucracy got the better of me. When I asked why I was being detained, I was told that I had no need to know the reason! Totalitarianism is itself a cliché (as well as a tundra of pulverizing boredom) and it forced the cliché upon me in turn. I did have to mention Kafka in my eventual story. The regime fell not very much later, as I had slightly foreseen in that same piece that it would. (I had happened to notice that the young Czechs arrested with us were not at all frightened by the police, as their older mentors had been and still were, and also that the police themselves were almost fatigued by their job. This was totalitarianism practically yawning itself to death.) A couple of years after that I was overcome to be invited to an official reception in Prague, to thank those who had been consistent friends through the stultifying years of what 'The Party' had so perfectly termed 'normalization.' As with my tiny moment with Nelson Mandela, a whole historic stretch of nothingness and depression, combined with the long and deep insult of having to be pushed around by boring and mediocre people, could be at least partially canceled and annealed by one flash of humor and charm and generosity.

As a woman, a true loyal friendship is important. Truth be told, it takes patience and a lot of work. You will have some friendships that will be underestimated and tested. Most definitely, there will be some friendships that will come and go. However, there will be friendships and sisterhoods that will last a lifetime. A true sister will walk through the fire with you; and after she walks through the fire, she will stand against the rough currents with you. Nobody is perfect. True sisterhood is a gift that absolutely holds your love together.

A love that ran deeper than friendship, deeper than family. A combat-tested bond that transcended blood and bone. Soul mates.

Baley said, sharply, “Nevertheless bound by friendship. Do not, for your own sake, test the force of our—” Now it was he who paused and, as though to his own surprise, completed the sentence impossibly, “—love.

Everything is temporary, almost like a passing fase, some of laughter Some of pain. What we would do, If we had the chance to explore What we had taken for Granted the very day before, Some would say I'm selfish, To hold a little sadness in my eyes, But they don't feel the sorrow When I can't do, all that helps me feel alive. I can express my emotions, but I can't run wild and free, My mind and soul would handle it but hell upon my hip, ankle and knees, This disorder came about, as a friendship said its last goodbyes, Soooo this is what I got given for all the years I stood by? I finally stand still to question it, life it is in fact? What the fuck is the purpose of it all if you get stabbed in the back? And after the anger fills the air, the regret takes it places, I never wanted to be that girl, Horrid, sad and faded... So I took with a grain of salt, my new found reality, I am not of my pain, the disability doesnt define me. I find away to adjust, also with the absence of my friend, I trust the choices I make, allow my heart to mend. I pick up the pieces I retrain my leg, I find where I left off And I start all over again, You see what happens... When a warrior gets tested; They grow from the ashes Powerful and invested. So I thank all this heartache, As I put it to a rest, I move forward with my life And I'll build a damn good nest.

The best way to get children to do what you want is to spend time with them before disciplinary problems occur—having fun together and enjoying mutual laughter and joy. When those moments of love and closeness happen, kids are not as tempted to challenge and test the limits. Many confrontations can be avoided by building friendships with kids and thereby making them want to cooperate at home. It sure beats anger as a motivator of little ones!

For me, friendships are tested not in the best of times, but in the worst of times. You don’t always get a second chance to be there for someone when they really need you. So when I say I will be there, I mean it. And when I need you, you better be there. Everyone has deal breakers and this is one of mine.

The real test of friendship is: Can you literally do nothing with the other person? Can you enjoy together those moments of life that are utterly simple? They are the moments people look back on at the end of life and number as their most sacred experiences.

Being there when things are easy is one of the benefits of being a good friend. Being there when things get difficult is one of the tests.

Travelling together is a great test, which has damaged many friendships and even honeymoons.

Misfortune tests the sincerity of friendship.

Dismantle your friend to see how he behaves. If he smiles with a beautiful grin, then take him back, he's worthy to be called a friend.

Misfortune can present people with moral tests they simply cannot pass, writes philosopher Nir Eisikovits.

I lent only half an ear to those well-intentioned folk who say that happiness is enervating, liberty too relaxing, and that kindness is a corruption for those upon whom it is practiced. That may be; but in the world as it is, such reasoning amounts to a refusal to nourish a starving man decently, for fear that in a few years he may suffer from overfeeding. When useless servitude has been alleviated as far as possible, and unnecessary misfortune avoided, there will remain as a test of man’s fortitude that long series of veritable ills, death, old age, and incurable sickness, love unrequited and friendship rejected or betrayed, the mediocrity of a life less vast than our projects and duller than our dreams; in short, all the woes caused by the divine nature of things.

You and I are so different: I am one word at a time one foot in front of the other, slowly, always testing how surely footing is before proceeding to the next sentence with ruminative breaks for buttered toast and coffee.

I've just come to my room, Livy darling, I guess this was the memorable night of my life. By George, I never was so stirred since I was born. I heard four speeches which I can never forget... one by that splendid old soul, Col. Bob Ingersoll, — oh, it was just the supremest combination of English words that was ever put together since the world began... How handsome he looked, as he stood on that table, in the midst of those 500 shouting men, and poured the molten silver from his lips! What an organ is human speech when it is played by a master! How pale those speeches are in print, but how radiant, how full of color, how blinding they were in the delivery! It was a great night, a memorable night. I doubt if America has seen anything quite equal to it. I am well satisfied I shall not live to see its equal again... Bob Ingersoll’s music will sing through my memory always as the divinest that ever enchanted my ears. And I shall always see him, as he stood that night on a dinner-table, under the flash of lights and banners, in the midst of seven hundred frantic shouters, the most beautiful human creature that ever lived... You should have seen that vast house rise to its feet; you should have heard the hurricane that followed. That's the only test! People might shout, clap their hands, stamp, wave their napkins, but none but the master can make them get up on their feet. {Twain's letter to his wife, Livy, about friend Robert Ingersoll's incredible speech at 'The Grand Banquet', considered to be one of the greatest oratory performances of all time}

When I became a Christian as a teenager, I gathered a false belief to myself that my Christian friends would be my forever friends. Surely, since we both loved Jesus and followed Him, we would always be in each other's lives. No one would hurt the other -- because Jesus! It didn't take long for that theory of mine to be tested by reality.

The official recruiting process for their posse began. Because Carlos, Narc, and Trevor each had high SQs, Heeb and Evan reasoned that adding the three to their group would raise the average SQ of each group member (much the way that colleges recruit individuals with higher test scores to increase the average test scores of their matriculated students).

A friendship forged in the fires of adversity is a strong as one that has weathered the test of time.

Only God can turn a mess into a message, a test into a testimony, a trial into a triumph, a victim into a victor.

Missed tests, deadlines, assignments – got late, stopped brushing hair and teeth … didn’t even get out of bed for days. Not a single ping on my mobile to ask if I were okay.

And, just like that, he had thrown at me his own little test. If I was going to toy with him and challenge his loyalty, then he would toy with me, test my integrity.

I don’t think I meant a word of it. But this is how you speak when you’re in a bathroom stall in your twenties, high on cocaine, and testing the depths of your friendships.

Life is a crash test.

Friendship is a gift that keeps on giving, a bond that withstands the test of time. Cherish your friends, and always strive to be a good friend in return.

Friends stick by each other when one is down. That is a true test of friendship. But sometimes, it is harder to stick by a friend who is up. That is the ultimate test of friendship.

I certainly didn't concur with Edward on everything, but I was damned if I would hear him abused without saying a word. And I think this may be worth setting down, because there are other allegiances that can be stress-tested in comparable ways. It used to be a slight hallmark of being English or British that one didn't make a big thing out of patriotic allegiance, and was indeed brimful of sarcastic and critical remarks about the old country, but would pull oneself together and say a word or two if it was attacked or criticized in any nasty or stupid manner by anybody else. It's family, in other words, and friends are family to me. I feel rather the same way about being an American, and also about being of partly Jewish descent. To be any one of these things is to be no better than anyone else, but no worse. When confronted by certain enemies, it is increasingly the 'most definitely no worse' half of this unspoken agreement on which I tend to lay the emphasis. (As with Camus’s famous 'neither victim nor executioner,' one hastens to assent but more and more to say 'definitely not victim.')

To those who have cherished an affection for a faithful and sagacious dog, I need hardly be at the trouble of explaining the nature or the intensity of the gratification thus derivable. There is something in the unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a brute, which goes directly to the heart of him who has had frequent occasion to test the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere Man.

You know that feeling of invincibility you sometimes get, especially when young and testing yourself - well that could be because actually know deep down that we are indeed eternal. We come into this world to live a life, to experience it, from somewhere else, some other plane, but we are programmed by all around us to deny or forget this - until one day we may remember again. That feeling of blissful reconnection with our source can be invoked through nature, beautiful writing or art or music, any detailed craft or work of discovery or personal dedication, meditation or other mentally balancing practice, or even through religious experience if there is a pure communion (not a pretence of it). But we should not yearn to return too soon, we should accept that we have come here for the duration of each life, and revel in the chance to learn and grow on this splendid planet. We can draw a deep sense of being-ness. peace, and love from this connection, which will sustain us through any trial. Once nurtured, this becomes stronger than any other connection, so of course our relationships here are most joyful when they allow us the personal freedom to spend time developing and celebrating that connection. Our deepest friendships form with those we can share such time and experiences with - discussing, meditating, immersing ourselves in nature, or creating our music, art, written or other works. Our journeys here are voyages of discovery, opening out the wonders within and all around. What better companions could we have than those who are able to fully share in such delights with us?

Second, building trust requires risk—mostly emotional. Testing strengthens trust. Friendships grow while working through difficulties together and finding resolution. This includes clarifying misunderstandings, admitting wrong, apologizing and forgiving. As we deal with the bumps in a relationship, mutual confidence increases. Soon both parties are confident the other will not intentionally hurt them.

Here’s something to consider: If you have a friend whose friendship you wouldn’t recommend to your sister, or your father, or your son, why would you have such a friend for yourself? You might say: out of loyalty. Well, loyalty is not identical to stupidity. Loyalty must be negotiated, fairly and honestly. Friendship is a reciprocal arrangement. You are not morally obliged to support someone who is making the world a worse place. Quite the opposite. You should choose people who want things to be better, not worse. It’s a good thing, not a selfish thing, to choose people who are good for you. It’s appropriate and praiseworthy to associate with people whose lives would be improved if they saw your life improve. If you surround yourself with people who support your upward aim, they will not tolerate your cynicism and destructiveness. They will instead encourage you when you do good for yourself and others and punish you carefully when you do not. This will help bolster your resolve to do what you should do, in the most appropriate and careful manner. People who are not aiming up will do the opposite. They will offer a former smoker a cigarette and a former alcoholic a beer. They will become jealous when you succeed, or do something pristine. They will withdraw their presence or support, or actively punish you for it. They will over-ride your accomplishment with a past action, real or imaginary, of their own. Maybe they are trying to test you, to see if your resolve is real, to see if you are genuine. But mostly they are dragging you down because your new improvements cast their faults in an even dimmer light.

It is one of the severest tests of friendship to tell your friend his faults. So to love a man that you cannot bear to see a stain upon him, and to speak painful truth through loving words, that is friendship.

We were told [as TAs] to pick a Shakespeare play, a contemporary play, two novels, five stories, and a dozen or so poems and spread them out over the course of the semester, issuing regular tests and paper assignments. I picked works that I knew well, but Lucy saw teaching as a great chance to further her own education. With the exception of the Shakespeare and the poetry, her syllabus consisted of things she had always meant to read.

Gregory?” I called. I couldn’t help myself. It was irrational, but I was scared to see him run from me. He turned my direction, his feet pivoting in the dirt. Warily, I crossed into the light for a moment. “Do you, um…” I inhaled deeply. “Do you think you’ll still want to be my friend tomorrow?” I held my breath and waited for his answer. Although I could feel the sunshine perceptibly tingle every inch of exposed skin, the way Gregory smiled at me produced a swell of warmth unmatchable even for the sun. “I’ll always want to be your friend, Annabelle. Do you want to be mine?” My head nodded like mad, ecstatic, all on its own. I disappeared among the shadows again and watched my new friend until he stepped around the Hopkins’ house. Then I waited until his car drove off -- Gregory and his mother headed for home. I was on a high like no other, but I’d not lost my grasp on reality entirely. I knew that the real test would come Monday. It was one thing to befriend an outcast in the privacy of the woods, but quite another to risk ridicule and reputation when surrounded by peers. This was true even for those with the biggest of hearts, which I now believed Gregory Hill to have.

...True classical dropouts in society are those who avoid difficult challenges and cling to the first opportunity that comes their way. They never test their talents. These latent talents will only help to produce the next cycle of dropouts...

All his reckless, whimsical, sensual testing of the world throughout the years had been a search for what he knew with her. Passion and peace. Laughter and combat and friendship. God, but he loved her. It was an immensely humbling, enormous, radiant thing.

His loyal and eager nature, brought for the first time to the test of love, gave itself utterly, and demanded a gift as utter without the reservation of one particle of the heart. He admitted no sharing in friendship. Being ready to sacrifice all for his friend, he thought it right and even necessary that his friend should wholly sacrifice himself and everything for him. But he was beginning to feel that the world was not built on the model of his own inflexible character, and that he was asking things which others could not give.

Sometimes, the most unexpected connections can become the strongest bonds. Through the serendipitous meeting on WhatsApp, our online friendship has stood the test of time, proving that distance is no match for the power of genuine connection and the beauty of chance encounters.

It actually went pretty well, until they got onto the topic of marijuana. “So you got caught smoking weed your freshman and sophomore years,” said the Rockets interviewer. “What happened your junior year?” Williams just shook his head and said, “They stopped testing me. And if you’re not going to test me, I’m gonna smoke!

We are the center. In each of our minds - some may call it arrogance, or selfishness - we are the center, and all the world moves about us, and for us, and because of us. This is the paradox of community, the one and the whole, the desires of the one often in direct conflict with the needs of the whole. Who among us has not wondered if all the world is no more than a personal dream? I do not believe that such thoughts are arrogant or selfish. It is simply a matter of perception; we can empathize with someone else, but we cannot truly see the world as another person sees it, or judge events as they affect the mind and the heart of another, even a friend. But we must try. For the sake of all the world, we must try. This is the test of altruism, the most basic and undeniable ingredient for society. Therein lies the paradox, for ultimately, logically, we each must care more about ourselves than about others, and yet, if, as rational beings we follow that logical course, we place our needs and desires above the needs of our society, and then there is no community. I come from Menzoberranzan, city of drow, city of self. I have seen that way of selfishness. I have seen it fail miserably. When self-indulgence rules, then all the community loses, and in the end, those striving for personal gains are left with nothing of any real value. Because everything of value that we will know in this life comes from our relationships with those around us. Because there is nothing material that measures against the intangibles of love and friendship. Thus, we must overcome that selfishness and we must try, we must care. I saw this truth plainly following the attack on Captain Deudermont in Watership. My first inclination was to believe that my past had precipitated the trouble, that my life course had again brought pain to a friend. I could not bear this thought. I felt old and I felt tired. Subsequently learning that the trouble was possibly brought on by Deudermont's old enemies, not my own, gave me more heart for the fight. Why is that? The danger to me was no less, nor was the danger to Deudermont, or to Catti-brie or any of the others about us. Yet my emotions were real, very real, and I recognized and understood them, if not their source. Now, in reflection, I recognize that source, and take pride in it. I have seen the failure of self-indulgence; I have run from such a world. I would rather die because of Deudermont's past than have him die because of my own. I would suffer the physical pains, even the end of my life. Better that than watch one I love suffer and die because of me. I would rather have my physical heart torn from my chest, than have my heart of hearts, the essence of love, the empathy and the need to belong to something bigger than my corporeal form, destroyed. They are a curious thing, these emotions. How they fly in the face of logic, how they overrule the most basic instincts. Because, in the measure of time, in the measure of humanity, we sense those self-indulgent instincts to be a weakness, we sense that the needs of the community must outweigh the desires of the one. Only when we admit to our failures and recognize our weaknesses can we rise above them. Together.

These are the so-called "fair-weather" friendships, one who is chosen for the sake of utility will be satisfactory only so long as he is useful. Hence prosperous mean are blockaded by troops of friends; but those who have failed stand amid vast loneliness their friends fleeing from the very crisis which is to test their worth.

Genuine friendships are hard to come by and even harder to hold on to. Real friendship is the sort that lasts a lifetime. The type that can overcome disagreements and differences as if they never happened. And the real test of friendship? True friendship arises from the ashes of separation stronger and more powerful than before.

Civic flattery - or a political culture that allows people to appear to engage in civic discourse without ever having their opinions, or even their claims of fact, seriously challenged - is ultimately more damaging to democracy than civic enmity. When we incorporate civic flattery into our personal relationships, we get shallow, insincere friendships. When we use it as the basis for political alliances, we get echo chambers. And when a skilled political manipulator flatters a large portion of the population in an attempt to acquire and consolidate power, we get perhaps the most dangerous test that a democratic society can ever face: the emergence of a demagogue.

The purpose of a relationship is to decide what part of yourself you'd like to see "show up", not what part of another you can capture and hold. There can be only one purpose for relationships - and for all of life: to be and to decide Who You Really Are. [...] The test of your relationships has had to do with how well the other lived up to your ideas, and how well you saw yourselves living up to his or hers. Yet the only true test has to do with how well you live up to yours. Relationships are sacred because they provide life's grandest opportunity - indeed, its only opportunity - to create and produce the experience of your highest conceptualization of Self.

Ora appreciated that he always made the effort to acknowledge her maid. Lina's Romani heritage meant she was scorned or ignored by many of the people Ora had flirted with over the years, and was therefore a sure test of who was worth spending time on. There were few things she found less appetizing in a person than rudeness to her friends.

I learned that a stiff test for friendship is: “Would she be pleasant to have t.b. with?” Unfortunately, too many people, when you try separating them from their material possessions and any and all activity, turn out to be like cheap golf balls. You unwind and unwind and unwind but you never get to the pure rubber core because there isn’t any.

Friendship is a two-way street, where both hearts beat in harmony, sharing laughter and tears in equal measure. When one side bears the weight of affection, the foundation cracks, and the bond begins to fade. Mutuality is the lifeblood of true friendship, where give and take dance in balance, nourishing a connection that stands the test of time.

You seem disappointed that I am not more responsive to your interest in "spiritual direction". Actually, I am more than a little ambivalent about the term, particularly in the ways it is being used so loosely without any sense of knowledge of the church's traditions in these matters. If by spiritual direction you mean entering into a friendship with another person in which an awareness and responsiveness to God's Spirit in the everydayness of your life is cultivated, fine. Then why call in an awkward term like "spiritual direction"? Why not just "friend"? Spiritual direction strikes me as pretentious in these circumstances, as if there were some expertise that can be acquired more or less on its own and then dispensed on demand. The other reason for my lack of enthusiasm is my well-founded fear of professionalism in any and all matters of the Christian life. Or maybe the right label for my fear is "functionalism". The moment an aspect of Christian living (human life, for that matter) is defined as a role, it is distorted, debased - and eventually destroyed. We are brothers and sisters with one another, friends and lovers, saints and sinners. The irony here is that the rise of interest in spiritual direction almost certainly comes from the proliferation of role-defined activism in our culture. We are sick and tired of being slotted into a function and then manipulated with Scripture and prayer to do what someone has decided (often with the help of some psychological testing) that we should be doing to bring glory to some religious enterprise or other. And so when people begin to show up who are interested in us just as we are - our souls - we are ready to be paid attention to in this prayerful, listening, non-manipulative, nonfunctional way. Spiritual direction. But then it begins to develop a culture and language and hierarchy all its own. It becomes first a special interest, and then a specialization. That is what seems to be happening in the circles you are frequenting. I seriously doubt that it is a healthy (holy) line to be pursuing. Instead, why don't you look over the congregation on Sundays and pick someone who appears to be mature and congenial. Ask her or him if you can meet together every month or so - you feel the need to talk about your life in the company of someone who believes that Jesus is present and active in everything you are doing. Reassure the person that he or she doesn't have to say anything "wise". You only want them to be there for you to listen and be prayerful in the listening. After three or four such meetings, write to me what has transpired, and we'll discuss it further. I've had a number of men and women who have served me in this way over the years - none carried the title "spiritual director", although that is what they have been. Some had never heard of such a term. When I moved to Canada a few years ago and had to leave a long-term relationship of this sort, I looked around for someone whom I could be with in this way. I picked a man whom I knew to be a person of integrity and prayer, with seasoned Christian wisdom in his bones. I anticipated that he would disqualify himself. So I pre-composed my rebuttal: "All I want you to do is two things: show up and shut up. Can you do that? Meet with me every six weeks or so, and just be there - an honest, prayerful presence with no responsibility to be anything other than what you have become in your obedient lifetime." And it worked. If that is what you mean by "spiritual director," okay. But I still prefer "friend". You can see now from my comments that my gut feeling is that the most mature and reliable Christian guidance and understanding comes out of the most immediate and local of settings. The ordinary way. We have to break this cultural habit of sending out for an expert every time we feel we need some assistance. Wisdom is not a matter of expertise. The peace of the Lord, Eugene

This book is my hate letter to standardized testing. It’s also my love letter to neuroscience, Star Wars, women in STEM, friendships that hit rough patches but then try their best to bounce back, research assistants, interdisciplinary scientific collaborations, Elle Woods, ShitAcademicsSay, mermaids, hummingbird feeders, people who struggle with working out, and cats.

I went to Mass one Sunday, and there is a thing in one of the prayers which says: ‘And save us from Everlasting Doom.’ I think I am having Everlasting Doom at the moment. I’m going to try and stay down here in April, and be here for poor Kits, who I had to chuck so in the summer. He has passed his test and got his car, and everything, and he is so jolly to be with, and just can’t be depressed.

One way to test whether you have chosen your friends wisely is to ask yourself why they are your friends. If your only answer is that you like them and they are fun to be with (certainly important components of friendship), you probably haven’t given consideration to their values. Or try this: what case could you make to people who have never met your friends to prove that your friends are good people?

I used to feel like this all the time and it didn’t bother me, but it’s different now. (…) …and besides, I want to test them. I have been the third wheel in this friendship for around ten years. They have no idea who I really am. It’s the exact opposite to my friendship with Flo. All these years I’ve passed off their lack of interest in me as an innocent vacancy, but it’s now feeling more like selfishness. I don’t belong here.

I told him that I would continue our work, our collaboration, for as long as I lived. Will you write our story? Do you want me to? You have to he said no one but you can write it. I will do it, I promised, though I knew it would be a vow difficult to keep. I love you Patti. I love you Robert. And he was wheeled away for tests and I never heard him speak again. Save for his breath, which seemed to fill his hospital room as he lay dying. (p. 287)

I rub my hand down my face, frustrated. This girl in front of me tests my patience like hell. When she ran to me after her dad kicked her out, I thought she still had feelings for me. She needed a place to stay, and I needed her. I offered her a room, thinking if she was around me every day, she would remember she loves me. I was dead wrong. Somewhere along the way, we switched roles, I became the one who so desperately needed her and she became cold and closed off. She isn’t my savior; she’s my punishment.

Doing time is a real test of friendship. None of my old friends passed that test. Maybe none of them had even noticed that I was missing. To me, that made it even more special that people I had never met before came to visit me and did stick by me. Most of the travellers who had visited me were just passing through La Paz and couldn’t visit more than once or twice. However, many of them stayed in contact by letters and email. I glued the postcards they sent me from all over the world onto my wall. I received mail from the United States, Australia, Canada, Germany, England, Israel, Turkey and Japan. Whenever I felt sad, I would read what the tourists had written to me, and I would soon feel better again. Even though I only met many of these people once, I knew that they were real friends. You know how? I had nothing to give them. I couldn’t give them money, I couldn’t give them status, I couldn’t take them to fancy places and buy drinks for them. All I had were my stories and who I was, and that was enough for them to want to stay in contact. For the first time in my life, that was enough.

Chad’s easygoing personality matched well with Chris’s. Chad didn’t want or need anything out of the friendship; he just genuinely liked Chris, and vice versa. They started hanging out on weekends, watching football or fooling around with the kids. Leanne and I would hang out in the kitchen and we’d all have a relaxing, fun time. Chad even helped Chris clean out the garage one day-if there’s a stronger test of suburban male friendship, I can’t think of it. “You know, I think Chad would take a bullet for me,” said Chris one night when we were getting ready for bed. “Really? That’s an awfully big thing.” “Yeah, but I really do.

At her words, words of forgiveness from Rose, an honest and just woman, something broke inside of Wince. His tears began to flow. Age seemed to drift from his face like misty ghosts from a morning field. Katie lifted his chin and, holding back her own tears, looked into his eyes. "Thank you, Wince." Eve placed her free hand on his shoulder. "May we hold her now?" Wince nodded and gently released the baby into the waiting arms of her sisters. "You did the right thing, Wince." Rose gave Wince a hug. "And you can help us bury her after Wilson and the Tar Ponds City Police see if they can find anybody to lay charges against after all this time.

Imagine you were asked in a maths paper at junior school, 'Which would you prefer, a shilling or two sixpences?' and you answered, 'Two sixpences,' because thinking of the two tiny silver coins jingling together in your pocket made you feel good and you loved those cute little sixpences. But when the test paper was returned you saw a big red cross through your answer, and that night your mother explained to you that it was a trick question, two sixpences and a shilling were worth the same amount – which you knew, but you'd still prefer two sixpences. It wasn't that you were stupid, you just saw things from a different angle. Sixpences had character, shillings didn't. And you felt richer with two sixpences because there were two coins, not just one. But despite all these explanations, you were still wrong and you kept getting tripped up by these trick questions over and over again, in exams, in relationships, friendships, jobs and interviews. In fact, these misreadings of situations happened so often that you started to view the world as a tricksy and untruthful place. Then you noticed that the people who saw the tricks behind the questions were popular and always at the top of the class. Baffled by life and its unseen rules, you began to doubt everything around you. You felt you had to approach all of life as a trick, just to get it right a few times.

Any Justification that does not lead to Biblical sanctification and mortification of sinful desires is a false justification no matter how many Solas you attach to it”. “See that your chief study be about the heart, that there God’s image may be planted, and his interest advanced, and the interest of the world and flesh subdued, and the love of every sin cast out, and the love of holiness succeed; and that you content not yourselves with seeming to do good in outward acts, when you are bad yourselves, and strangers to the great internal duties. The first and great work of a Christian is about his heart.” ~ Richard Baxter Never forget that truth is more important to the church than peace ~ JC Ryle "Truth demands confrontation. It must be loving confrontation, but there must be confrontation nonetheless.” ~ Francis Schaeffer I am not permitted to let my love be so merciful as to tolerate and endure false doctrine. When faith and doctrine are concerned and endangered, neither love nor patience are in order...when these are concerned, (neither toleration nor mercy are in order, but only anger, dispute, and destruction - to be sure, only with the Word of God as our weapon. ~ Martin Luther “Truth must be spoken, however it be taken.” ~ John Trapp “Hard words, if they be true, are better than soft words if they be false.” – C.H. Spurgeon “Oh my brethren, Bold hearted men are always called mean-spirited by cowards” – CH Spurgeon “The Bible says Iron sharpens Iron, But if your words don't have any iron in them, you ain't sharpening anyone”. “Peace often comes as a result of conflict!” ~ Don P Mt 18:15-17 Rom 12:18 “Peace if possible, truth at all costs.” ~ Martin Luther “The Scriptures argue and debate and dispute; they are full of polemics… We should always regret the necessity; but though we regret it and bemoan it, when we feel that a vital matter is at stake we must engage in argument. We must earnestly contend for the truth, and we are all called upon to do that by the New Testament.” Martyn Lloyd-Jones (Romans – Atonement and Justification) “It is one of the severest tests of friendship to tell your friend his faults. So to love a man that you cannot bear to see a stain upon him, and to speak painful truth through loving words, that is friendship.” ~ Henry Ward Beecher “Truth bites and it stings and it has a blade on it.” ~ Paul Washer Soft words produce hard hearts. Show me a church where soft words are preached and I will show you a church of hard hearts. Jeremiah said that the word of God is a hammer that shatters. Hard Preaching produces soft hearts. ~ J. MacArthur Glory follows afflictions, not as the day follows the night but as the spring follows the winter; for the winter prepares the earth for the spring, so do afflictions sanctified, prepare the soul for glory. ~ Richard Sibbes “Cowards never won heaven. Do not claim that you are begotten of God and have His royal blood running in your veins unless you can prove your lineage by this heroic spirit: to dare to be holy in spite of men and devils.” ~ William Gurnall

To come back to the question, the wise man, self-sufficient as he is, still desires to have a friend if only for the purpose of practising friendship and ensuring that those talents are not idle. Not, as Epicurus put it in the same letter, ‘for the purpose of having someone to come and sit beside his bed when he is ill or come to his rescue when he is hard up or thrown into chains’, but so that on the contrary he may have someone by whose sickbed he himself may sit or whom he may himself release when that person is held prisoner by hostile hands. Anyone thinking of his own interests and seeking out friendship with this in view is making a great mistake. Things will end as they began; he has secured a friend who is going to come to his aid if captivity threatens: at the first clank of a chain that friend will disappear. These are what are commonly called fair-weather friendships. A person adopted as a friend for the sake of his usefulness will be cultivated only for so long as he is useful. This explains the crowd of friends that clusters about successful men and the lonely atmosphere about the ruined – their friends running away when it comes to the testing point; it explains the countless scandalous instances of people deserting or betraying others out of fear for themselves. The ending inevitably matches the beginning: a person who starts being friends with you because it pays him will similarly cease to be friends because it pays him to do so. If there is anything in a particular friendship that attracts a man other than the friendship itself, the attraction of some reward or other will counterbalance that of the friendship. What is my object in making a friend? To have someone to be able to die for, someone I may follow into exile, someone for whose life I may put myself up as security and pay the price as well. The thing you describe is not friendship but a business deal, looking to the likely consequences, with advantage as its goal. There can be no doubt that the desire lovers have for each other is not so very different from friendship – you might say it was friendship gone mad. Well, then, does anyone ever fall in love with a view to a profit, or advancement, or celebrity? Actual love in itself, heedless of all other considerations, inflames people’s hearts with a passion for the beautiful object, not without the hope, too, that the affection will be mutual. How then can the nobler stimulus of friendship be associated with any ignoble desire?

The common quest or vision which unites Friends does not absorb them in such a way that they remain ignorant or oblivious of one another. On the contrary it is the very medium in which their mutual love and knowledge exist. One knows nobody so well as one’s ‘fellow’. Every step of the common journey tests his metal; and the tests are tests we fully understand because we are undergoing them ourselves. Hence, as he rings true time after time, our reliance, our respect, and our admiration blossom into an Appreciative Love of a singularly robust and well-informed kind. If, at the outset, we had attended more to him and less to the thing our Friendship is ‘about’, we should not have come to know or love him so well. You will not find the warrior, the poet, the philosopher, or the Christian by staring in his eyes as if he were your mistress: better fight beside him, read with him, argue with him, pray with him.

I was certainly not the best mother. That goes without saying. I didn’t set out to be a bad mother, however. It just happened. As it was, being a bad mother was child’s play compared to being a good mother, which was an incessant struggle, a lose-lose situation 24 hours a day; long after the kids were in bed the torment of what I did or didn’t do during those hours we were trapped together would scourge my soul. Why did I allow Grace to make Mia cry? Why did I snap at Mia to stop just to silence the noise? Why did I sneak to a quiet place, whenever I could? Why did I rush the days—will them to hurry by—so I could be alone? Other mothers took their children to museums, the gardens, the beach. I kept mine indoors, as much as I could, so we wouldn’t cause a scene. I lie awake at night wondering: what if I never have a chance to make it up to Mia? What if I’m never able to show her the kind of mother I always longed to be? The kind who played endless hours of hide-and-seek, who gossiped side by side on their daughters’ beds about which boys in the junior high were cute. I always envisioned a friendship between my daughters and me. I imagined shopping together and sharing secrets, rather than the formal, obligatory relationship that now exists between myself and Grace and Mia. I list in my head all the things that I would tell Mia if I could. That I chose the name Mia for my great-grandmother, Amelia, vetoing James’s alternative: Abigail. That the Christmas she turned four, James stayed up until 3:00 a.m. assembling the dollhouse of her dreams. That even though her memories of her father are filled with nothing but malaise, there were split seconds of goodness: James teaching her how to swim, James helping her prepare for a fourth-grade spelling test. That I mourn each and every time I turned down an extra book before bed, desperate now for just five more minutes of laughing at Harry the Dirty Dog. That I go to the bookstore and purchase a copy after unsuccessfully ransacking the basement for the one that used to be hers. That I sit on the floor of her old bedroom and read it again and again and again. That I love her. That I’m sorry. Colin

This is a very common thing among male groups of friends. There is a person who's always taking heat from everyone else for various reasons. Not that I'm defending this behavior though, fuck no, I hate it when guys are like this; it's barbaric and stupid. Unfortunately I think it's like an unconscious thing that just comes natural to guys when we're in groups. We take the piss out of each other all the time, prodding until we know the limits of each other and crossing the lines once in a while to test the boundaries. Some guys who're overly-nice or don't fully understand this dynamic get completely shit on by it. If you keep excusing small actions by others that violate your boundaries, they'll just keep pushing and pushing, giving less and less respect until they know how far they're allowed to go. Having people knowing your limits and making sure to not cross them equates to respect, which is what we're after. This doesn't mean you should to tell them all to fuck off now; that wouldn't work anymore because you've allowed them this far into your territory. It'd seem like an overreaction from you, which makes sense, right? "We were just joking around yesterday about the same things, he seemed cool with it, but now he's all pissed for some reason, this guys a whack..." The key thing to note if you want to avoid this in the future is to either find "nicer" friends, or to let people know when they cross a boundary. This may sound huge and dramatic, but it's honestly a really simple thing. "Haha great job idiot you messed up" ----> "Fuck you man haha" Simple as that; he/they poked at you and by throwing it back at him, you let him know you're not just going to take it. If they do something that crosses your boundary, you respond appropriately; a big cross, like outright disrespecting you, means a big reaction, like telling the guy off. Does this mean you can't be nice anymore? Nope, not at all. You can still be a nice guy; most interactions with others don't involve all this boundary bullshit - and that's when the niceness in your personality can shine through. Beyond that, it's also a personal image/confidence thing. If you truly respect yourself, how would you let anyone get away with the things they say/do to you? What if this was your little sister? Would you let others treat her the same way? If not, then why would you let them treat you this way?

That’s right. It’s about contact. In my view, the whole thing is in essence extremely simple. Contact means an exchange of experiences, concepts, or at least results, conditions. But what if there’s nothing to exchange? If an elephant isn’t a very large bacterium, then an ocean can’t be a very large brain. Of course, various actions can be performed by both sides. As a result of one of them I’m looking at you right now and trying to explain to you that you’re more precious to me than the twelve years of my life I devoted to Solaris, and that I want to go on being with you. Perhaps your appearance was meant to be torture, perhaps a reward, or perhaps just a test under a microscope. An expression of friendship, a treacherous blow, perhaps a taunt? Perhaps everything at once or—as seems most likely to me—something entirely different. But what can you and I really care about the intentions of our parents, however different they were from one another? You can say that our future depends on those intentions, and I’d agree with you. I can’t predict what’s to come. Nor can you. I can’t even assure you I’ll always love you. If so much has already happened, then anything can happen. Maybe tomorrow I’ll turn into a green jellyfish? It doesn’t depend on me. But in what does depend on us, we’ll be together. Is that not something?

HE SAID: "Who's knocking at my door?" Said I: "Your humble servant!" Said He: "What business have you got?" Said I: "I came to greet You!" Said He: "How long are you to push?" Said I: "Until You'll call me!" Said He: "How long are you to boil?" Said I: "Till resurrection!" I claimed I was a lover true and I took may oaths That for the sake of love I lost my kingdom and my wealth! He said: "You make a claim - the judge needs witness for your cause!" Said I: "My witness is my tears, my proof my yellow face!" Said He: "The witness is corrupt, your eye is wet and ill!" Said I: "No, by Your eminence: My eye is sinless clear!" He said: "And what do you intend?" Said I: "Just faithful friendships!" Said He: "What do you want from me?" Said I: "Your grace abundant!" Said He: "Who travelled here with you?" Said I: "Your dream and phantom!" Said He: "And what led you to me?" Said I: "Your goblet's fragrance!" Said He: "What is most pleasant, say?" Said I: "The ruler's presence!" Said He: "What did you see there, friend?" Said I: "A hundred wonders!" Said He: "Why is it empty now?" Said I: "From fear of brigands!" Said He: "The brigand, who is that?" Said I: "IT is the blaming!" Said He: "And where is safety then?" Said: "In renunciation." Said He: "Renunciation? That's ... ?" Said I: "The path to safety!" Said He: "And where is danger, then?" Said I: "In Your love's quarters!" Said He: "And how do you fare there?" Said I: "Steadfast and happy." I tested you and tested you, but it availed to nothing - Who tests the one who was once tried, he will repent forever! Be silent! If I'd utter here the secrets fine he told me, You would go out all of yourself, no door nor roof could hold you

In the seven weeks that it took for Longwood to be refurbished and extended, Napoleon stayed at a pretty bungalow called The Briars, closer to Jamestown, with the family of the East India Company superintendent William Balcombe, where he had one room and a pavilion in their garden.66 This period was his happiest on St Helena, not least because he struck up an unlikely, charming and innocent friendship with the second of the Balcombes’ four surviving children, Betsy, a spirited fourteen-year-old girl who spoke intelligible if ungrammatical French and to whom Napoleon behaved with avuncular indulgence. She had originally been brought up to view Napoleon, in her words, as ‘a huge ogre or giant, with one large flaming eye in the centre of his forehead, and long teeth protruding from his mouth, with which he tore to pieces and devoured little girls’, but she very soon came to adore him.67 ‘His smile, and the expression of his eye, could not be transmitted to canvas, and these constituted Napoleon’s chief charm,’ she later wrote. ‘His hair was dark brown, and as fine and silky as a child’s, rather too much so indeed for a man as its very softness caused it to look thin.’68 The friendship began when Napoleon tested Betsy on the capitals of Europe. When he asked her the capital of Russia she replied, ‘Petersburg now; Moscow formerly’, upon which ‘He turned abruptly round, and, fixing his piercing eyes full in my face, he demanded sternly, “Who burnt it?” ’ She was dumbstruck, until he laughed and said: ‘Oui, oui. You know very well that it was I who burnt it!’ Upon which the teenager corrected him: ‘I believe, sir, the Russians burnt it to get rid of the French.’69 Whereupon Napoleon laughed and friendship with ‘Mademoiselle Betsee’, ‘lettle monkee’, ‘bambina’ and ‘little scatterbrain’ was born.

I have come, my lovely,” Roddy said with his usual sardonic grin as he swept her a deep bow, “in answer to your urgent summons-and, I might add,-“ he continued, “before I presented myself at the Willingtons’, exactly as your message instructed.” At 5’10”, Roddy Carstairs was a slender man of athletic build with thinning brown hair and light blue eyes. In fact, his only distinguishing characteristics were his fastidiously tailored clothes, a much-envied ability to tie a neckcloth into magnificently intricate folds that never drooped, and an acid wit that accepted no boundaries when he chose a human target. “Did you hear about Kensington?” “Who?” Alex said absently, trying to think of the best means to persuade him to do what she needed done. “The new Marquess of Kensington, once known as Mr. Ian Thornton, persona non grata. Amazing, is it not, what wealth and title will do?” he continued, studying Alex’s tense face as he continued, “Two years ago we wouldn’t have let him past the front door. Six months ago word got out that he’s worth a fortune, and we started inviting him to our parties. Tonight he’s the heir to a dukedom, and we’ll be coveting invitations to his parties. We are”-Roddy grinned-“when you consider matters from this point of view, a rather sickening and fickle lot.” In spite of herself, Alexandra laughed. “Oh, Roddy,” she said, pressing a kiss on his cheek. “You always make me laugh, even when I’m in the most dreadful coil, which I am now. You could make things so very much better-if you would.” Roddy helped himself to a pinch of snuff, lifted his arrogant brows, and waited, his look both suspicious and intrigued. “I am, of course, your most obedient servant,” he drawled with a little mocking bow. Despite that claim, Alexandra knew better. While other men might be feared for their tempers or their skill with rapier and pistol, Roddy Carstairs was feared for his cutting barbs and razor tongue. And, while one could not carry a rapier or a pistol into a ball, Roddy could do his damage there unimpeded. Even sophisticated matrons lived in fear of being on the wrong side of him. Alex knew exactly how deadly he could be-and how helpful, for he had made her life a living hell when she came to London the first time. Later he had done a complete turnabout, and it had been Roddy who had forced the ton to accept her. He had done it not out of friendship or guilt; he had done it because he’d decided it would be amusing to test his power by building a reputation for a change, instead of shredding it. “There is a young woman whose name I’ll reveal in a moment,” Alex began cautiously, “to whom you could be of great service. You could, in fact, rescue her as you did me long ago, Roddy, if only you would.” “Once was enough,” he mocked. “I could hardly hold my head up for shame when I thought of my unprecedented gallantry.” “She’s incredibly beautiful,” Alex said. A mild spark of interest showed in Roddy’s eyes, but nothing stronger. While other men might be affected by feminine beauty, Roddy generally took pleasure in pointing out one’s faults for the glee of it. He enjoyed flustering women and never hesitated to do it. But when he decided to be kind he was the most loyal of friends.

Fact about a good friend.. A Friend is two union who joine together to share their interest for the purpose of their own benefit.. A good friend , save as security to his friend , he washes his friend back , in absence , he also fight for his friend even thou his frnd is victim of the action., A Frnd in need is a frnd indeed. , A good frnd carries his frnd cross.., A gud frnd lay his life for his frnd ,. (sacrafices) A good frnd movltivate his frnd to right direction..., A good frnd is lyk ur broda , or sister to u , bt the differ in blood. A good frnd z better dam evil broda or sister... A good frnd protect his frnd , and also keep his frnd secret. A good frnd 4give witout excuse. understand witout explain,trust wit out test.,and always faithfull. To his frnd. A good frnd is lyk eraser ,to erase the bad character and brings out the best one , in his frnd life.

Today was a day to face that very temptation. A family who had become dear friends had left the church with no warning or explanation. Not even good bye. When they were missing on that first Sunday, we didn’t realize that they had removed themselves from our church. We thought maybe someone was sick or an alarm clock didn’t go off or something simple. If it had been something serious, they would have called us, of course. We had done so much for them and with them. We rejoiced when they rejoiced, we cried when they cried, we prayed with them, we prayed for them, we loved them and felt as if they loved us in return. Of course, one Sunday turned to two, and then three. I mentioned to Michael that I had called and left a message. He told me that he had the same thought as well. He had left a message and sent a card. We felt sad as the realization sank in: they had left the church. People don’t know how to leave a church, and many pastors don’t take such a loss graciously. In all our determinations about pastoring, we had considered the possibility of losing members, but this family was the first. It was time for a lesson for all of us, and I felt the Lord tugging at my spirit. I was to take the first step. Sunday afternoon, Michael taking a nap, kids playing games in their room... Now was as good a time as any. I got into my car and headed toward their house. Suddenly nervous, I sat in the driveway for a minute at first. What was I doing here again? Pastor’s wives don’t do this. I had been around pastor’s wives all my life. Since sensing my call to full time ministry at eighteen, I had been paying close attention to them, and I had never seen one of them do this. I got my words together. I needed an eloquent prayer for such a moment as this one: “Lord, help” (okay, so it wasn’t eloquent). I remembered a verse in Jeremiah: “I, the LORD, search the heart, I test the mind, Even to give every man according to his ways, According to the fruit of his doings” (17:10). The Lord knew my heart, and He understood. In this situation, I knew that I had opened myself up to Him. In this situation, I knew that my heart was pure before Him. All of a sudden, my courage returned. I opened the car door and willed myself toward the front porch. As I walked up the driveway, I also thought about Paul’s warning which I had read earlier that morning: “they failed to reach their goal... because their minds were fixed on what they achieved instead of what they believed” (Romans 9:31-32). This family was not my achievement; they were the Lord’s creation. What I believed was that I had been right in opening my heart to them. What I believed was that Michael and I had been faithful to the Lord and that we had helped this family while they were in our flock. I had not failed to reach my goal thus far, and I felt determined not to fail now. This front porch was not unfamiliar to me. I had been here before on many occasions, with my husband and children. Happy times: dinners, cook-outs, birthdays, engagement announcements, births.... Sad times as well: teenaged child rebelling, financial struggles, hospital stays or even death .... We had been invited to share heartache and joy alike. No, “invited” is the wrong word. We were needed. We were family, and family comes together at such times. This afternoon, however, was different. I was standing on this familiar front porch for a reason that had never brought me here before: I came to say good bye. On this front porch, I knocked on the door. This family had been with us for years, and we had been with them. Remembering how this family had helped and blessed our congregation, I quietly smiled. Remembering how they had enriched our personal lives with their friendship and encouragement, I could feel the tears burning behind my eyes. We would miss them. Remembering all that we had done for them, I wondered how they could leave with no word or even warning. Just stopped coming. Just

Your tests don’t have to define you. Your compatibility doesn’t have to be a ceiling over which your relationship can never rise. Your past hurts don’t have to constitute the first steps in a journey toward divorce court. We worship, serve, and are empowered by a supernatural God who can lift us above our scientific limitations and create something special out of something very ordinary. These tests don’t account for the power of a magnificent obsession.

Harriet had lost count of the times she’d read a note Eben Pulsifer had sent her: “I so much enjoyed the time we spent together. You sparkled with brilliance, the best company I’ve had for months. As unlikely as it seems, I believe we can form a friendship.” She asked herself what she knew about him. They were the same age; he was divorced. Very ambitious, he wanted to be president of the university, but that was a second choice, after other avenues closed to him. It didn’t seem that he was so crude that he wanted her friendship to secure her vote. Did he actually like her? Did she like him? She called Pulsifer: “I’ve read your note. Thanks. It’s flattering. If we keep on seeing each other, either I’ll have to resign from the search committee – or you’ll have to stop dreaming of being president of the school.” “How about if I set you up for the job instead? ” Pulsifer asked. “Don’t think about it. That’s the poorest joke I’ve heard in months.” “Thank you,” Pulsifer said. “I needed to know what you think. Everyone wants what’s best. But not everyone sees all the problems. Russian missiles in Cuba, tests of nuclear weapons. Sensitive people are frightened, especially young ones. Why bother to do our best if the world is about to get blown up? Why don’t we worship idols? That might do some good. Or live for a good time?” “It sounds like you’re running for essayist-at-large,” Harriet said. Pulsifer’s voice deepened. “What happens if weapons fall into irresponsible hands? We need to develop a new kind of person – smart, flexible, sturdy – who can live with the fears that run through mass society and help others overcome them.” “How do you propose to build this new kind of person?” “I’m not sure yet,” Pulsifer admitted. “A president knows how to do things not just point to problems.” They talked on, hardly aware of undercurrents in their conversation. They’d had a brief romance as undergraduates, then went separate ways. Old feelings revived, potentially deeper, but new romance seemed unlikely, so different were they from one another. “What do you say to dinner tonight?” Pulsifer asked. “I was thinking about seeing Macbeth again.” “Let’s do both,” Pulsifer offered. Maybe he really does want a friend, Harriet thought. Like a sophomore all at sea.