I’m pretty good at relationships. But at times I can be annoying, at best a nuisance. Say it ain’t so!!Why? Because of several reasons. 1) Someone once described me as “assuming a familiarity that is not there.” What he meant by that is that because I am an extrovert and want to be friends, I assume the same is true of others. Boy, have I got that messed up! And I have made a fool of myself in the process because not everyone wants to be my friend. 2) I can be pushy If I want to be friends and assume others want to.  I stay in contact. I write. I call. I text. I did that with Paul. He lived in Ohio; I lived in IN. I got to know him on a week-long bike tour and wanted to continue the friendship after it was over. I assumed he did also. It took close to a year before he would reciprocate. Oh…he was an introvert. But when he moved away to GA, correspondence pretty much died.

What Tripp writes make sense. Flawed people will have flawed relationships. Weeds will grow. Weeds have grown in the friendship with Paul. I gave up trying to clean out the weeds. My friendship with Jim started because of cycling and is still current, although weeds of neglect are growing. My friendship with Doug is over 45+ years. The death of his son in 2006; his withdrawal because of that and subsequent retirement has put some distance between us, but in my mind it is worth saving.

“Father, I celebrate you. I celebrate your ability to make two people who don’t know each other find common ground. I thank you for that. I thank you for my friends today, the ones who have my back and will fight with and for me. I thank you for infusing your grace into those friendships by taking flawed people and making them compatible. Help me to be a friend who brings grace to that relationship.”