Advent 09- Friends

Today my Good Thing is something- or some people- that I am really very thankful for.  My friends.

I was quite a lonely kid at school.  Through most of primary and secondary school I didn't really fit in- I didn't like the same music, wasn't interested in talking only about boys, didn't hang around the swings after school drinking and smoking.  In a way, I was too intellectual to fit in with half my year group, and too shy to push my way into the other half- the clever and cool half.

It wasn't really until sixth form, when people from several other schools joined ours and everyone was mixed around a bit, that I found any proper friends, people who had interests beyond pop stars and who fancies who, people who would notice when you were upset and try to help.  Before that, I'd either been alone or hung around the edges of gangs of people who couldn't care less about me- who would join in with the laughing and name calling when the bullies turned up- to make sure they didn't become the next victim.

But it was once I got to uni that I really found friends I could relax with and trust, friends from the CU and church and from G&S.  People who actually liked me as a person, and who are there, willing to listen, when something goes wrong.  That's the kind of friends I'm very grateful for.  Friends who, when I first met them, I never imagined that a few years later I would be helping them prepare for their weddings, or going on holiday with them, or living with them for five years.  And yet- those things have happened.

My friends are wonderful people, and an answer to many prayers, even if they don't realise it.  I've already thanked them once in this series.  But they're worth more than that.  So thank you again, all my friends, and I hope I can be as good a friend to you as you are to me.