Thankful Thursday: Friendship

Today is Thankful Thursday at Rhondi's blog, Rose Colored Glasses, and this is the day that Rhondi and a group of her blogging friends like to get together to count blessings. I'm so happy Rhondi hosts this because if it's one thing I like to do, it's to count blessings, especially with blogging friends. That's because I am always blessed when I focus on my own blessings and also when I read about what blesses you. I'm also taking a page out of Rhondi's book and using her blog's "theme song" today, only in a different version, as I think it works so well for Thankful Thursday. :-)

Today is also the day that a very dear friend of mine (and my prayer partner and sister of the heart) is undergoing surgery. So I'm asking for your prayers that the surgery be a success. She is one of my nearest and dearest and is also the grandmother to little Cecelia and Addie on my sidebar, the mother to my precious friends Missy and Cece, and the loving wife of my brother in the Lord, Bill.

So I want to start Thankful Thursday by celebrating and giving thanks for my friendship with Adelaide whom I love like a sister. If you knew her, you would all want her for your sister, too! We've been friends a long time, beginning in a prayer group and continuing as prayer partners and close, close friends. And Adelaide is a person who knows exactly how to be a good friend. So she is gold to me.

This reminds me of the saying, "Make new friends and keep the old. One is silver; the other, gold." And for the next few days, I am going to celebrate in addition to my golden girl, some new friends online who have been ever so kind to me (and ever so patient in waiting for me to post about it).

So in honor of that most precious gift of friendship and my close and enduring friendship with Adelaide, I think this essay by Kahlil Gibran is most representative of the type of friendship we share. Adelaide (don't you love her name?) is one of those friends whom the Bible says "loveth at all times," and I "loveth" her right back because she is so easy to love. And I see a lot of what we share together in this essay. The essay is a short read that packs a powerful message and has always been one of my favorites -- so please enjoy!


On Friendship
Kahlil Gibran

Your friend is your needs answered.

He is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving.



And he is your board and your fireside.
For you come to him with your hunger, and you seek him for peace.



When your friend speaks his mind you fear not the "nay" in your own mind, nor do you withhold the "ay."

And when he is silent your heart ceases not to listen to his heart;



For without words, in friendship, all thoughts, all desires, all expectations are born and shared, with joy that is unacclaimed.

When you part from your friend, you grieve not;
For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.



And let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.

For love that seeks aught but the disclosure of its own mystery is not love but a net cast forth: and only the unprofitable is caught.

And let your best be for your friend.
If he must know the ebb of your tide, let him know its flood also.



For what is your friend that you should seek him with hours to kill?
Seek him always with hours to live.

For it is his to fill your need, but not your emptiness.

And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures.



For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.



I love you, Adelaide!

[whose favorite flowers just happen to be hydrangeas] ;-)

And I thank all of you for visiting me here at my blog today. Please feel free to visit all of the other thankful people at Rhondi's Rose Colored Glasses by going here. You'll be happy you did! :-)




Thankfully,


Mrs. Magpie (Sheila)