My friend was dying, and I grieved for her in her pain, but my spirit was heavy with that unfulfilled longing that had always been there. I contemplated the empty years of a depth of relationship that had never happened, that mutual giving and receiving of one’s inner person with the freedom of abandonment and the spontaneity of like-mindedness. Shared life experiences had connected us, and they continued to connect us, but something real and alive was missing. True, we were both hindered by life itself to fully express life, and the threads of friendship were sometimes drawn very tightly, but could we not have relaxed and enlarged those cords? Love was not questioned, but its evidence seemed scant and vague in its demonstration. Yet still we plodded through the days of its existence, reaching out and then pulling back. Pride? Inhibitions? Lack of knowledge? Pretense? What really quelled the depth that had been longed for? Was fault to be laid before one or the other? Did it really matter? The questions gnawed and I wept.

 

A singular answer seemed to sear itself into my heart, and the answer formed a question. What had I given??? How often had I looked at my friend and thought, "If only ..." How often had I judged, and how often had I seen her inadequacies? For a moment in time, I could understand her and then I would walk away from that understanding. How often had I really wanted to listen to the heartbeat and the memories of her own heart? How often was I bothered by her idiosyncrasies and intolerant of our differences? And yet, incredibly, I had longed for relationship. Was it the foolishness of my own heart and thinking that had prohibited it? Although broken by the truth that was being unveiled, I still wasn’t sure that what I had coveted could have been reality. Perhaps not, but there was a certainty that arose. The emptiness would not have been as barren and dry if I had watered the soil of friendship with an outpouring of my own self. Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. Love is exemplified in Christ. It gives and it gives and it gives again.