F.R.I.E.N.D.S.

By Algene Tan

Sometimes, looking for friends whom we can count on, share our ups and downs in life, and love (sometimes more than we love our own siblings!) is not easy. In school, you can be the most popular person and yet every night you wet your pillow with tears because while you have many acquaintances, you feel alone because you have no friend whom you can really be really intimate with.

That was the situation for me. I knew many people, but I could not find a bosom buddy. If you read my biography in autograph books I had filled for my primary school friends, you would see a discrepancy in my list of "best friends," simply because I added names of those I "targetted" to fill that role, but we never ended up best friends!

During the Sweet Valley hype in the '90s, reading the adventures of the Wakefield twins made me wish that I had a twin sister so that I would not have to find a best friend. But of course, that was just wishful thinking.

Later in secondary school, I was greatly distraught when a girl I regarded as my best friend didn't want to accept me as her best friend. Since then, I felt that I was simply made to be a social butterfly of sorts. In other words, I can be acquainted with many people, but I will never be part of any clique. So I stopped trying so hard to look for a best friend.

But it was also through the same secondary school's Christian Fellowship that I found the Perfect Friend on whom I could count for anything and everything. I then accepted Him as my Perfect Friend.

So when I progressed on to college and university, I realised that it would be an added blessing if I could find a best friend. But all the same, I ought to treasure and love people even if they do not accept me beyond acquaintance-ship. It is a difficult act that I'm still trying my best at.

I also realised that true friends ought to bring out the best in you, and so you ought to accept their criticisms about characteristics that you have that need to be changed (the wise ones, of course) because it is for your own benefit. Most of all, those same friends should make you feel comfortable about yourself, so that you do not have to put on a mask and pretend to be someone else.

There is a proverb that goes "There are 'friends' who destroy each other, but a real friend sticks closer than a brother" (Proverbs 18:24 - NLT). It was during my time in college and university that I knew this proverb to the true. I have seen "friends" who used each other for their benefit and ended up with bitter and hurt hearts. Can you imagine going through a lifetime of carrying those feelings? It's terrible!

But it also then that I finally found circles of friends whom I can count on, share my ups and downs in life with, and most of all … to love to bits. They became an embodiment of the "best friend" I had always wanted; in fact, I regard them as my siblings — a band of brothers and sisters. I know now that I am never alone, because of my friends and, ultimately, my Perfect Friend.

And for this, I am grateful to my Perfect Friend for blessing me with awesome friends such as them.