I heard someone quote CS Lewis yesterday. It was on the subject of friendship.

“In friendship…we think we have chosen our peers. In reality a few years’ difference in the dates of our births, a few more miles between certain houses, the choice of one university instead of another…the accident of a topic being raised or not raised at a first meeting–any of these chances might have kept us apart.”

He goes on to say that he believes God brings our friends into our lives. Much like people often say they where ‘meant for each other’ when they talk about a lover, he’s saying God orchestrates our lives so we will become friends with people, he goes on to say:

“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.”

I don’t know the context of this quote, and whilst I do think God (you can switch God out for whatever higher being or life source you believe in) brings people into our lives and most likely He has a purpose for that, I don’t know that I buy into the idea that every friend I have had in my lifetime has been heaven-sent.

The reason why this quote stuck out to me is because the subject of friendship is a regular talking point in our home. You move countries and friendship is a big part of what makes it both easy and hard in equal measure. Easy in that friends are often your biggest support as you pack up you whole life and take it over to the other side of the world, and when you find yourself in a new place, the people that offer friendship are the most valuable gift you can be given. The flip side to this of course is that leaving friends who you have been living alongside for years, who know the details of your life and who you depend on for certain physical, emotional and mental needs is disorientating at best, heart wrenching at worst. It’s also hard, when you do return back to an old life, as we have done three times, to find friends have moved on, changed and are virtually unknown to you.

I wrote in a previous post that this move, the fourth time we have emigrated across the world now returning to the UK, has been the hardest because our children are teenagers so the consequences of moving country have been much more significant for them. Saying goodbye to friends they have known for six years is much harder because they have known them for almost half their lives. Plus, we learnt quickly, that making friends with teenagers is way harder than you would expect (something to discuss in another blog).

As they have both walked through their first 12 months of life in the UK teenagers, they have grieved the loss of friends back in NZ and struggled to find their fit with friends in the UK. I’ve assured them that friendships will come and go all the way through their lives, no matter whether they stay in one place or travel the world. In fact, meeting new people and collecting friendships as you move from one place or stage of life to another, is a wonderful part of life. Like CS Lewis said above, friends introduce us to beauty and joy that we would never have known without them. Friendship enriches our lives. Even when friendships are hard or come to an end, they teach us about empathy, healing, forgiveness and the importance of letting go.

Moving countries does cause a rather abrupt end to some friendships, ones that would have probably gone on very happily if we had stayed put but distance renders them impossible. At least in this modern age of social media and video calls, some friendships can take on a new form and I am always delighted and sometimes surprised by the friends who stay in touch even when we are thousands of miles apart. In the same way, when you return to a place after years away, it’s profoundly comforting to have friends that can pick up exactly where you left off without any loss of depth or affection.

After 13 years of not living in the same city with one friend and only a few online and in-person catch ups in that time, I realised, as I celebrated her 50th in Wales this spring, that my friendship with her would always be there, always with mutual respect, always with laughter, always with love.

Another friend has stayed in regular contact no matter where I have been, her constancy and loyalty has sustained me through so many highs and lows of life since we met. I know I don’t deserve such an excellent friend but there is no way I will ever let her go.

Sometimes living away from friends can mean that when we come back together we have become closer than when we last met. Maybe it’s because the distance has made us appreciate them more, our separate experiences have somehow shown how much we like each other. Even when finding out I now have a very different belief system to one friend, I realise she has become one of my favourite people in the world (and given I have lived on both sides of the world, that’s saying something).

Then there is the friend I have known since birth, we’re so fundamentally close we are practically sisters. I realise this friend should never be too far away from me, because she is one of the few people in my life who completes me as a person. She has and always will help me to know who I am.

I could go on…the kindred spirit who I lived in the same place for only a year but who I count as one of my best friends, my beautiful friend who I share weekends away with from time to time who has taught me so much about grace and generosity, the one who showed me Jesus, the one who gave birth to me, the sister who my husband gave me, the friend I have only known a few months and already I would trust her to pick up my children if I couldn’t get to them.

In many ways, I do agree with CS Lewis, these women are all angels sent from God, how could they be anything else? They are so perfectly right for me and have made me a better person.

Which is good news for my children. They have only just started collecting friends. It’s exciting really, to be forced to find new ones. Because, what if we hadn’t moved? They didn’t start this new school, or join that swim squad or netball team? Go on that summer camp or get a Saturday job. What gem of a friend would they have missed? And let’s face it, if a friend is meant to be, you’ll find them, maybe multiple times.