Friendship

When God gives us life,
He opens several new doorways for us,
Several paths to choose from,
Several ways to go.
He also gives us the wisdom..
To discern right from wrong,
To make decisions and to think,
To seek light when it is dark,
To find happiness in times of sorrow...

He gives us the power
To pick up people along the way
To make a special place for them in our hearts
Share our lives and call them
FRIENDS

Sometimes, by chance,

we happen to meet

strangers from afar.

Friends are what

we have become,

strangers we no longer are.

We have become friends because

that's what we're supposed to be.

It doesn't have to make any sense,

but it does to you and me.

I'm glad we met and bonded.

I'm glad for the smiles we share.

I'm thankful that I have a friend

and I'm glad that you also care.

It matters not how far apart

the lands in which we live.

What matters most to me, my friend,

is the friendship that we give.

My friend, I need you now
Please take me by the hand.
Stand by me in my hour of need,
Take time to understand.

Take my hand, dear friend,
And lead me from this place.
Chase away my doubts and fears,
Wipe the tears from off my face.

Friend, I cannot stand alone.
I need your hand to hold,
The warmth of your gentle touch
In my world that's grown so cold.

Please be a friend to me
And hold me day by day.
Because with your loving hand in mine,
I know we'll find the way.
 

By Becky Tucker

From Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul II

Copyright 1998 by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor

Hansen, Kimberly Kirberger

When I ask you to listen to me and you start giving advice you have not done what I asked.

When I ask you to listen to me and you begin to tell me why I shouldn't feel that way, you are trampling on my feelings.

When I ask you to listen to me and feel you have to do something to solve my problems, you have failed me, strange as that may seem.

Listen! All I ask is that you listen.  Not talk or do, just hear me.

Advice is cheap: 50 cents will get you both Dorothy Dix and Dr Spock in the same newspaper.

And I can do for myself; I'm not helpless. Maybe discouraged and faltering, but not helpless.

When you do something for me that I can and need to do for myself, you contribute to my fear and weakness.

But when you accept as a single fact that I do feel what I feel, no matter how irrational, then I quit trying to convince you and can get about the business of understanding what's behind this irrational feeling.

And when that's clear, the answers are obvious and I don't need advice.

So, please listen and just hear me, and if you want to talk, wait a minute for your turn; and I'll listen to you.

A certain man planted a rose and watered it faithfully,
and before it blossomed, he examined it.
He saw the bud that would soon blossom and also the thorns.
And he thought, "How can any beautiful flower
come from a plant burdened with so many sharp thorns?"
Saddened by this thought, he neglected to water the rose,
and before it was ready to bloom, it died.

So it is with many people.
Within every soul there is a rose.
The God-like qualities planted in us at birth
grow amid the thorns of our faults.
Many of us look at ourselves
and see only the thorns and the defects.
We despair, thinking that nothing good
can possibly come from us.
We neglect to water the good within us,
and eventually it dies.
We never realize our potential.
Some people do not see the rose within themselves;
someone else must show it to them.
One of the greatest gifts a person can possess
is to be able to reach past the thorns
and find the rose within others.

This is the characteristic of love,
to look at a person, and knowing his faults,
recognize the nobility in his soul,
and help him realize that he can
overcome his faults.
If we show him the rose,
he will conquer the thorns.
Then will he blossom, blooming forth thirty,
sixty, a hundred-fold as it is given to him.
Our duty in this world is to help others
by showing them their roses and
not their thorns.

Only then can we achieve the love
we should feel for each other;
only then can we bloom in our own garden.