When do we grow out of needing friends?

I've been thinking about a thought recently. . . friendship. We encourage friendship . . . in our children. It is important for us that our children/teens are liked enough by others to have friends, and, at least I hope, it is important for our children to be the right kind of friend. Friendship seems to come more naturally for us to develop in our children. We develop their friendship by having their friends over our house. We let our children go to their house. We take our children and their friends places. We let our children give gifts to their friends. We let them do things for their friends and with their friends. But we, ourselves have grown out of needing that same bonding. We rarely model for them how to be a friend, and/or having the right kinds of friends. We are so busy we don't have time to have other ladies over. We are so busy being grown up we don't take the time we need to just hang out with our girl friends. We are so busy being "spiritual" that we don't take time to be with other women unless it is inside the confines of ministry. We never just have people over to spend time with them . . . we have to have a purpose . . . we have to be ministering to them . . . we have to be fixing their problems then that somehow justifies us having them over or going to coffee with them. We crowd our schedules with making money, running our kids around, cleaning our house, serving at church, etc. but we forget to leave time for friendships. We are too grown up for that . . . or are we? At what time do we not need the stress relief of a good belly laugh with a friend? At what time do we no longer need advice for the changing seasons of our life? At what time do we grow up enough that we have it all together and never need help? At what time do we need to stop modeling for our children not only how to BE the right kind of friend, who to have as a friend, but how to develop a friendship?

Maybe we have forgotten how to . . . maybe, instead of growing out of needing friends, we've simply forgotten what it was like to sit on the bed with our friend and paint our toes as we share a moment, as we share our thoughts and ideas about life, about boys, about what ifs. Maybe we've gotten so busy or our husbands are grouches and we don't know how to entertain anymore. Somehow it's ok for us to entertain little people but we ourselves feel awkward doing it with adults. Maybe our friends will realize we don't have as nice of a house as we'd like and so we don't want to open ourselves up to that.  Maybe our husbands selfishly hold us back from having people over because they don't want people to see our house. Maybe we just aren't good house keepers and we need to clean. One thought here: You can have the nicest house and furniture in the world and people might not feel comfortable in your home, you can also have the junkiest furniture in the world and people might feel comfortable . . . it all depends on the people in the home. YOU make people feel comfortable and welcome in your home, your inanimate objects DO NOT!

So that begs the question how do we be the right kind of friend, who is the right kind of friend to have, and how do we develop our friendships? Also one more . . . does the bible, our basis for life, have anything to say on friendship? I will be answering these questions in the upcoming blogposts, but for now feel free to leave your comments! I would love to hear from you on some answers you have to these questions!