Friendship of Self…

 

In my previous posts I wrote about the lesson’s friendship has taught me. Kelly Kels taught me the value of friendship. Risha taught me the decisions of friendship and Dannie Boo taught me the definition of friendship. While I hope to write more on my friendship series, this will be my last one for now. Throughout my life I have had some amazing friends and some not so amazing friends. I want to highlight more great lessons I learned from some of my phenomenal friends. However, this will be the last lesson for a little while. I will try to have a friend stories at least once a month. Right now, I have so many ideas for this blog and I want to share as many of them as I can.

Being surrounded by good people is very important to me. There was a time in my life that the people around me weren’t that great and my life looked a lot different. All that changed when I prayed and asked God to remove those who were not for me out of my life and surround me with friends and people that could be for me. Bring people into my life that would champion my dreams and I could champion their dreams. During this time, I began to lose friends left and right. While it stung a little, I also began to learn how much God loves me. It was the loving kindness I felt from God answering my prayer that helped me to want to be a better friend.

There is a saying, “No one will love you if you don’t love yourself!” That saying is not one that I am particularly fond of because God will always love you no matter what. Nevertheless, quality friends come when you are a quality friend to yourself first. I had love for myself but if I’m honest after failed relationships and prolonged years in college I was beating up on myself worse than hard liquor on the liver. In my mind I thought who would want to be friends with me? Jesus for one and me for two! I began to be my own friend. I enjoyed spending time with me and reminding myself of what I liked and didn’t like. I began to try new things and go new places. I realized I enjoyed my own company and in the process of enjoying myself I began to set requirements of the type of people I wanted around me.

It’s funny how the longer we are around people that treat us less than our worth the more we believe we are worth less (worthless). Spending time with myself and allowing God to remind me of my worth set a standard that I put in place no matter who is in my life. That standard also won’t allow me to have a certain type of friend. That was when God truly began to answer my prayer. The quality of friends that came into my life were richer in quality than before. The more I began to love me the more I was open to receiving love from those around me in a health way. I’m not saying this as if I have cornered the market on great friends but I legit have some damn great friends. My friends hold me accountable. They push me to be better or rather they push me to be the best version of myself. My friends also love me and will go to bat for me. I don’t have to worry about them hearing my name in gossip and them not standing up for my character. They know I would do the same for them. I love each of my friends whole heartedly and would go to bat for them. Yes, I am the friend that will ride out and flip tables if you need me to! Lol don’t judge me we all need a me type friend.

I say all of this to say, being a good friend comes with being a great friend to yourself first. Love yourself not with the expectation of being able to be loved by others. But, love yourself because you are worth love. You are worth friendship. You are worth life and life in abundance. Please take time to Love You! Loving myself has been one of the best journey’s I could have ever taken. Please know I love you and more importantly Jesus Loves you! God’s love is a great love.

Love ya,

-Juls