Friendships -- giving, receiving, beginning, ending

Friendship has two elements: The need to give admiration, love, kindness to someone AND the need to receive, admiration, love, kindness from someone.

Of course we humans are imperfect. So we don't give enough love and what our friends want...and we don't receive enough love and what we need.

When one is a Christian, these two elements become more complicated. Often we get care, kindness, admiration, and love from folks who aren't Christians. When this happens we have to make a decision: are we selling our souls in order to be friends with a non-Christian. For instance, if a druggie adulterous friend can always be depended on to understand our soul more than some of our Christian friend, that is a blessing. But what if the situation is that the adulterous druggie friend makes us lax on our own behavior?

And of course there is the aspect of our friendship that involves us giving to others. Especially to others who aren't of the same faith or beliefs as our own. Are we loving them as themselves? Are we loving them in order to change them? Are we loving them because we haven't found a Christian version of them? Uhm, thoughts I'm pondering...and to tell the truth...not really sure I want the answers or what I would have to do when the answers become clear.