The Friends We Keep by Sarah Zacharias Davis

I struggle with friendships. I struggle with feeling like I don't have very many friends - close friends. I struggle when someone I want to be friends with doesn't return my friendship. I wonder what's wrong with me? Why don't people want to be friends with me? Are my expectations for what a friend is too high? Are people just too busy to put effort into a real, close friendship? Am I wanting too much? Asking too much? This book The Friends We Keep was a salve for my soul. I'm not alone in my struggles with friendships. Sometimes friends are only there for a season and then they are gone. Sometimes we drift away, sometimes they do. Particularly in the world of women's friendships, things are tricky, delicate.

The Friends We Keep: A Woman's Quest for the Soul of Friendship by Sarah Zacharias Davis


My rating: 4 of 5 stars



"The fact is sometimes we are let down by our friends. Intentions may be good, efforts misguided, or they may have nothing left to give, and the result is simply that they are unable to be there for us in the ways we expect them to be."
"...there are times in friendship...when we need to simply accept what people are able to give. That is part of being a friend; in fact, that is part of living among others in any type of community. It is necessary to put away the expectations, the goals, the fixing and longing for how it could be, and simply be and allow our friend to do the same."

"What happens with the friendships that escape us? How does it happen that you drift apart, one day waking up to realize you're no longer friends with that person anymore? Nothing was said; there was no fight, no apparent offense. You don't call her, she doesn't call you, and she simply becomes the friend who got away. Perhaps it is circumstances - someone's situation changes."

"And perhaps there are those who enter our lives only for a time. They bring purpose, experience, and companionship that is meant to last only for a season. Perhaps we always knew that would be the case. Or perhaps we thought it was something we could hold on to and maintain despite our differences or circumstances."

"We all have our own bill of rights for friendship, don't we? Though largely unwritten, we have an internal dialogue of what is expected, acceptable, or unacceptable in our relationships.
"What are the requirements you set for friendships? Is it time, is it loyalty, is it being there - I mean being really there, deep in the mire alongside you, being present to celebrate successes and to mourn disappointments and devastations? Is it hospitality? Is it service? Is it knowing the right words to make you feel better? Is it being with you to mark life's inescapable milestones: births and birthdays, deaths and funerals, illnesses and remissions?
"Do we actually know what our own bill of rights requires? Expectations are often sneaky that way. We can be oblivious to them until they go unmet, and then suddenly they seem so obvious they obstruct our vision of anything else. If we haven't identified our requirements, we certainly can't communicate them. Would a bill of rights force each of us to explore our own expectations before they are returned to us unmet and their emptiness swallows us whole?
"What do we expect from our friends, and what happens when they don't deliver on those expectations? Margaret Mitchell, the author of Gone with the Wind, said, 'Life does not have an obligation to give you what you expect.' But do our friends? Do we obligate our friends to meet our expectations? And if they are unable to do so, should we extricate ourselves from the friendship?"