Thank you to all of you who participated in our friendship discussion over the past week and a half. It’s been a great conversation about the joys and the challenges of friendship. I’d like to offer 5 tips for friendship based upon our discussion:

1) You do need friends. Even though finding them and keeping them takes work, it’s important to have friends you do life with. Even Jesus, who was God Himself, lived life with 12 friends that we know as the “disciples.”

2) You’ll never make friends at church or a moms group. Don’t get me wrong, that’s a great place to meet people, but the best place to make friends is in your own living room, or by inviting a mom to join you and your kids at a park. Friendships take effort outside of social settings.

3) Forgiveness and grace are the best gifts you can give a friend. Friends are human. They’ll make mistakes and let you down on occasion. You have to know how to handle that—and God tells us that the best way is with forgiveness and grace.

4) Woundedness from the past can keep future friendships at bay. Learn from the past, but don’t let it pull you out of the friendship ring for good.

5) Recognize that Jesus longs to be your best friend. Yes, your Savior first. But your friend, too. That’s why I’m so passionate about Real Moms, Real Jesus. He will never let you down.

Now for our winner! Randomly selected from all of those who participated in our discussion, Mrs. Sidney is our winner! Mrs. Sidney, if you’ll email me directly at [email protected] and let me know your address and what Hearts at Home book you’d like, I’ll send it out right away!

Thanks for a great discussion this month!