Seeing Friendships Bloom Like Flowers
If you're following me on Twitter you know there's rarely a week that goes by when I'm not tweeting about how God has blessed me with some awesome friends. For a while now I've been wanting to post about friendship, but every time I tried, it never felt like "yeah this is it right here" - something was missing.
Now if you follow me on Instagram you would have seen my little series of pictures #PetalPower. I've had some of these floral snaps on my phone for a while (dating back to Valentines Day 2014*). I always knew I wanted to post them, I just didn't, until I was forced to create space on my iPhone! I didn't want to delete the pictures until they had been posted and being that I had a few (only 14 of my few were posted) I said why not now? Then #PetalPower came to mind because it sounded cool, of course at the time, I asked God why Petal Power? I mean it has a nice ring to it, but ain't nobody searching for "hashtag Petal Power"**... Nevertheless, I stuck with it (THANK GOD... I'm currently learning a few things about consistency and obedience...)
BACK TO THE MATTER...
So over the last two weeks (and this year in general), God has been amazing, in demonstrating His friendship through my friends. It has consisted of many deep FaceTime/FaceTime Audio conversations, encouraging Whatsapp messages & iMessages, comedic lunches and dinners, a couple of international visits and more.
So the other day, after talking to a friend of mine about friendship a few words came to mind, which I tweeted:
Part of being a friend is ALLOWING your friend to be a friend. The demonstration of friendship is more impactful than the mere mention of it.
In other words, create room for your friends to demonstrate their friendship towards you. It goes hand in hand with trust...
Of course, it's not everybody who calls you a friend/or says they are your friend, is truly a friend.
The same way I have so many hundred people as "friends" on Facebook [it] doesn't make them my friend.
But if indeed you are a true friend, create that room to allow your friendships to blossom. #PetalPower :)
Then it came to me in that last tweet I posted.
#PetalPower wasn't just about acknowledging God's artistry in nature, but also acknowledging His artistry in friendship. The same way soil needs to be dug, in order for plants to grow (creating room for growth), so we need to 'organically' permit room for growth, while obediently listening to God as He encourages us to dig deep into the soil of our friendships. For example, this may mean calling that friend, organising a trip away or being a shoulder to cry on etc.
A daily prayer of mine is to be a better, consistent and engaging friend to all my close ones (they know themselves), and God being so amazing in the friend department, He has provided me with SO many opportunities to be a friend and have my friends be friends to me (in celebration, through tears, offering reprimand and BANTER *Roll Safe Voice*) - the digging.
So to all my friends, THANK YOU! I guess in a way, these floral pictures represent each of you (one way or another). May we continue to blossom for years to come!
Additions & Subtractions
* Roses weren't mine *side eye* to anyone who thought they were mine and wanted to hear story....shame.
** I actually checked and IG has 5k+ posts with #PetalPower - I guess I'm not the only one.
And to think I wanted to make space on my phone, so I posted pictures, to eventually create that space. It's the same in life (in two ways):
1). True friends are always there and always at the right time - these pictures were posted at the right time
2). Sometimes some people just gotta go (just like the unedited versions of these pictures). Bye boo!