Relationships

Affirmation:   My friends bless my life and I treasure their relationships with me and hold them in my daily prayers.

Relationships can be a tricky thing.  I think most of our problems and issues relate to our relationships.  There have certainly been a million books about them and how to improve them or deal with them, or understand them.  How do you do with your relationships?  Are you more at ease with strangers than in your family circle? 

I’ve been married a long time, almost 43 years at this writing.  Every so often, my husband, Sandy, speaks about his “good friend” and then he gives me a name.  I cannot tell you how many times I have not had a clue who the person is that he has mentioned.  One day, I asked him how come he thought of so many people as being his “good friend.”  He told me, he chose to think of them that way.  He chose to think about and refer to many of his acquaintances as good friends.  Sandy is an unusual man in many ways but one quality he has which I have been told by friends that their husbands do not have, is he has a huge range of friends and he does a remarkable job of keeping in touch with most of them.  I loved the idea that he also claimed them as his good friends.  Why not?  How we think about others is very often how they think about us.  I believe it must be very unusual to have someone in our lives that we dislike that likes us. 

I’ve had my struggles.  I try hard to get along with everyone but I find some to be easier than others.  I have a friend who refers to herself as a “low maintenance” friend.  It’s the truth isn’t it?  Some people we simply flow along with, others are often trying to pull us upstream.  But, after my husband’s teaching, I decided the best way for me to create more harmonious relationships was to take the time to value the people in my life and along with valuing them, offer up prayers for their well being and for that of their loved ones.  If I choose to believe my friends bless my life, they will.  If I choose to believe they are draining my energy and causing me angst that, too, will be true.  Once again, it depends on me and the way I choose to think.  I want the people in my life to be loved and I hope that they will respond in kind.