True Friends

“A true friend never gets in your way unless you happen to be going down.”
—Robert Edwards

Often people will say that trust is the most important thing about friendship. We trust that when we divulge our deepest darkest secrets that the friend won’t divulge it to the world. We hope that our friends will always be there for us when we’re down, and that they can and will celebrate our victories too.

And if we truly want someone who we can trust and who is a true friend, we will hope that when we are about to make a big mistake they will let us know. Sometimes we aren’t able to see what we are doing because of emotions. And maybe our friend has some wisdom because they have followed a similar path that led to destruction or have witnessed it at some point.

It may sting to be told the truth. And we may feel it’s none of their business what we do, but in the long run we will be grateful for a friend who is honest enough to risk our friendship by telling us what we don’t want to hear.

If someone tries to dissuade us from doing something healthy and good because they are jealous, we’ll know the difference. It’s a true friend who will let us know when we are on a path that is destructive. If we stop and think about the fact that by telling us what we don’t want to hear they know that we may be angry and that they can lose our friendship, we will eventually see that it’s done from a place of love and not anything else.

A true friend will be there in good and bad times. A true friend will only get in our way when they know they have to stop us if they can from making a huge mistake. A true friend will allow us time to be angry when we don’t like what they told us. A true friend will risk our friendship when they feel it is necessary to keep us from falling.

If you have a friend who can be honest with you, keep that friend close.