Show Me Your Friends

Author: Sharon Verrett

www.saverrmarriage.com

My mom would always say, "Show me your friends and I'll tell you who you are." This was her way of doing a check and balance on our development.

If we were hanging out with delightful kids, we were okay. However, when we brought  the negative or deplorable children around, she'd redirect our path.

Is not that principle good as adults? Isn't that a great tool for our marriages? If we want a strong marriage, we should associate with those who have longevity and successful marriages.

It is often true, that we are drawn to people in which we have things in common. It is true, because those people keep us comfortable. We must step out of our comfort zone, sometimes to promote growth.

Well mom is no longer here. We are all adults and now and then we have to do a self-evaluation to see if our friends are bringing life or death to our relationships and our marriage.

Here are a few relationship self-evaluation questions to think about:

• Are we bickering because of what our friends said or their life-style?
• Do we want things because of our friend's status in a negative sense or positive?
• Are they humble, teaching us how to succeed with humbleness?
• Are they boastful, making your marriages a competition?
• When we hang out together, are we rejoicing and can't wait until the next time?
• Are we feeling dreadful and drained after a visit and asking ourselves what were we thinking?
• Do our married friends wear us down with their burdens, as we try to help.
• Are they not taking our advice in effort to help, not even with a grain of salt?
• What do we do after the evaluation of the negative relationships? We must begin to weed our gardens.

Weeds in a garden will choke the life out of the thriving, beautiful flowers or vegetables, just as the weeds in our life will choke the life out of our marriages.

It takes time and energy to remove the bad associations from our lives, but for the sake of our marriages we must do it.

Let us incorporate good positive friends into our relationships, people we would not mine reflecting. When we look into our friends we can see a good reflection of us. Knowing that is what people may see when they see us, because it is true that the friends we pick show others who we are.