{"id":4841,"date":"2014-07-29T23:01:09","date_gmt":"2014-07-30T05:01:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/?p=4841"},"modified":"2014-07-29T23:01:24","modified_gmt":"2014-07-30T05:01:24","slug":"friends-by-design","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/friends-by-design\/","title":{"rendered":"Friends by Design"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201c<\/span>In friendship\u2026we think we have chosen our peers. In reality a few years\u2019 difference in the dates of our births, a few more miles between certain houses, the choice of one university instead of another\u2026the accident of a topic being raised or not raised at a first meeting\u2013any of these chances might have kept us apart. But, for a Christian, there are, strictly speaking no chances. A secret master of ceremonies has been at work. Christ, who said to the disciples, \u201cYe have not chosen me, but I have chosen you,\u201d can truly say to every group of Christian friends, \u201cYe have not chosen one another but I have chosen you for one another.\u201d The friendship is not a reward for our discriminating and good taste in finding one another out. It is the instrument by which God reveals to each of us the beauties of others.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0 -C.S. Lewis<\/em><\/p>\n

I LOVE THAT QUOTE!!!\u00a0 And I couldn\u2019t agree with it more than I do.\u00a0 I believe that the people who come into our lives and become our friends doesn\u2019t just happen by accident.\u00a0 I believe that we are meant to meet one another and impact one another\u2019s lives for the better.\u00a0 When I look at the circumstances that have brought so many of the important people into my life it is so clear to me that there was divine powers at work bringing those people into my path. That same thing applies to my husband and my children coming into my life. I know they didn\u2019t end up in my life just by accident or circumstance, they were meant to be in my life and my in theirs.<\/p>\n

That is why I think it is so important to be aware of the people that come into your life.\u00a0 Even those people you might think are just passing through\u2026ask yourself, \u201ccould there be more to why this person was brought into my life to cross paths with me?\u201d\u00a0 If you keep that mindset you will find yourself far more aware as new people enter your surroundings.\u00a0 You will watch for and notice those people far more and you will find yourself being far more receptive to getting to know people and forming new friendships.<\/p>\n

This week as my family and I have been participating in some really fun activities together we have made a point to talk to any other families around us in these activities.\u00a0 The people around us this week are total strangers to us from many parts of the world who would fall into the category of most likely \u201cpasser-byers\u201d but what if they aren\u2019t? What if someone we meet this week is meant to have far greater meaning in our lives.\u00a0 Wouldn\u2019t it be a shame then not to get to know them and form a friendship?\u00a0 And so we have all been talking to strangers around us and already we have made friends with several families.\u00a0 We may or may not see any of them ever again, and may or may not be impactful in our lives in the future or we in theirs, but what if they can and do?\u00a0 Wouldn\u2019t it be worth having made the efforts to get to know them just on the possibility alone?\u00a0 I believe it is.\u00a0 I have seen how worth it it can be in my own life, both personally and professionally.\u00a0 And without a doubt I believe that God is constantly leading people into our path to bring out the beauty in each other.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s challenge is to pay attention to the people coming into your path\u2026believe there is a purpose for them being there\u2026then set out to form a friendship that will help bring that purpose to fruition.<\/p>\n

Have a great day everyone.<\/p>\n

~Amy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cIn friendship\u2026we think we have chosen our peers. In reality a few years\u2019 difference in the dates of our births, a few more miles between certain houses, the choice of one university instead of another\u2026the accident of a topic being raised or not raised at a first meeting\u2013any of these chances might have kept us […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2651,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[691,1011,101,696,540,1503,240,947,4313,1504,4646,179,4643,1417,4640,4639,164,51,33,189,591,29,4644,1794,4642,150,1380,4641,634,4311,4312,4645,264,416,2896,140,495],"class_list":["post-4841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-accident","tag-apart","tag-ashley","tag-aware","tag-beauty","tag-c-s-lewis","tag-children","tag-christ","tag-coincidence","tag-cs-lewis","tag-curcumstance","tag-dalton","tag-discriminating","tag-divine","tag-divine-guidance","tag-divine-intervention","tag-effort","tag-family","tag-friend","tag-friends","tag-friendship","tag-god","tag-good-taste","tag-impactful","tag-instrument","tag-others","tag-path","tag-peers","tag-people","tag-personally","tag-professionally","tag-reveal","tag-rollin","tag-spouse","tag-stranger","tag-strangers","tag-worth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4841"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4841\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4842,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4841\/revisions\/4842"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}