Put Love Into Practice

Put Love into Practice

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.

Kristin, Julie, and I have been friends now for many years. As we’ve started to speak and attend events around our state, we’ve often heard other women comment on our friendship—how our love and respect for one another is evident in the easy way we speak to one another, banter back and forth, and sometimes even finish one another’s sentences. From outward appearances, it can look like it hasn’t taken much effort for the bond to form between the three of us, but the truth is we’ve had our share of misunderstandings, annoyances, and mistakes. We’ve learned to apologize, and we’ve learned to forgive. We’ve held one another’s secrets and prayed each other through hard seasons. This friendship brings us great joy, it’s true, but it has been tested and tried and proven.

No one gains friends just by happenstance. You may meet someone and connect in an instant, but you’ve got to put in the work to make it a lasting friendship. It takes time, energy, and commitment. A recent survey showed that even with how connected everyone is today through social media and cell phones, loneliness is at an all-time high, in part because social media gives the appearance of connection without any real accountability. We can use it when it’s convenient for us and leave it when it isn’t. But this, in turn, only creates surface-level relationships without any real depth or lasting connection.

If we want true friendship, then we must be willing to practice loving others by showing patience and kindness, not being rude or jealous of their successes. We can’t demand our own way all the time or be overly sensitive. We must be willing to forgive and let things go. Must we do it perfectly all the time? Absolutely not. But we must create habits of loving people well if we want to have good friends.

— Kendra

— Today’s Act of Friendship —

Extend love to a friend by offering patience, kindness, and forgiveness in your tone and words, not by demanding your own way.