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When a Friend Fails
by Les & Leslie Parrott
January 2003
When the phone rang in the middle of the night, I (Les) never expected it to be Danny. "I'm calling from France," he said. "I know this is crazy, but I need to talk to you." As I was still rubbing the sleep from my eyes, he told me he'd had been thinking about our friendship—make that our ex-friendship. "I don't know exactly what happened between us," he confessed, "but I do know I acted like a jerk, and I want to apologize." He was sincere, and his heartfelt apology caught me off guard. I didn't expect to hear from Danny ever again, let alone hear him apologize.
It had been three years since we were in school together—three years since our last strained, polite conversation in which we both knew the gulf between us had grown too wide to cross.
On the phone that night, however, Danny was attempting to build a bridge, if only a temporary one, to reconnect and make things right. He told me about a soul-searching experience he was going through and how he didn't want to carry any resentment or bitterness over our failed friendship anymore.
We both apologized for past insensitivities and laughed at how comical it all seemed in retrospect. It was a cleansing; a wrong had been righted, a lost friend found. We still aren't that close, geographically or emotionally, but we have a connection. And in a sense, we're quite lucky; Most friendships that fade are gone forever. Very few are strong enough to make us wish for a second chance.
There are times when all of us look closely at a friendship and realize it just isn't working. It may be a fairly new friendship that still has a few wrinkles in it, or it may be a longtime friendship that was once rock solid but now appears to be fracturing. Either way, when a friendship falters, we rarely are equipped for the aftershock.
Close friends, after all, often become like siblings; some become "closer than a brother" (Proverbs 18:24). But losing a close friend isn't at all like losing a family member. We tend not to grieve the loss of a friend; there's no memorial service for a shattered friendship. Most people don't have screaming blowouts, or this-is-the-end discussions, or definite breaks. We don't seek shoulders to cry on to grieve the loss of friends like we do the loss of a family member or a romantic relationship. We don't go to counselors to heal the relationship or to cope with the loss. Indeed, despite the apparent premium so many people put on friendships, there's a surprising lack of focus in popular culture on the processes and feelings at work when friendships end. There are no best-sellers or self-help guides, and except for the rather vague and nondescriptive term "a falling out," there's not even much of a vocabulary to describe what happens, let alone why.
So if you have a friendship that has faltered, consider making a reconnection to say whatever words might need to be said—not necessarily to rekindle the friendship, but to right a wrong and cleanse your spirit. It's a wonderful way to maintain good health in all our relationships, and to honor God, who calls us to live in harmony with one another (1 Peter 3:8).
Article provided by Les & Leslie Parrott, The Center for Relationship Development, www.realrelationships.com.
Copyright © 2003 by the author or Christianity Today International.
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