Best Friends... to be or not to be?

All of my kids short life, I have had a few hard and fast rules. 1. No smart mouthing your mother. (: 2. No going outside without asking. 3. No best friends. When I first started this rule (the best friends one) I just did it out of instinct. In my humble experience, "best friends" had always left others (I guess that would be me) with hurt feelings. So, I didn't want my kids inflicting those hurt feelings on others. No matter how "unintentionally" it would be. So, along this line, I even went a step further and never let the kids get into a "rut" with friends. I always had them invite different friends to play at different times. No inviting just the same friend to play every time. I had watched other moms do differently and just as I suspected, often someone got their feelings hurt. No big deal really. I also have learned along this "mommy" path that you really can't avoid hurting feelings ALL the time. It's just impossible. If that is your only goal... you won't be able to do anything. BUT...

Fast forward to 2008...and some things are becoming clearer. Why is it that Best Friends are such a popular trend? Well, everyone does it. And guess what??? If you don't... you're pretty much odd man out. At this juncture,on one level,I wish I could relax and know that my girl had a bosom buddy to scoot through these next few years with. But, when I look a little deeper, I still think it's better to skip the best friend thing. Really, we all know, most "Best Friends" are temporarily holding that status. They may always be friends, but having to be the "best" one is either exhausting or will just naturally fizzle out. In the mean time, it may have alienated some perfectly great people that could have been your friend but chose not to because you already had a "Best Friend". Or, it could have alienated friends that you used to be "good friends" with, but now that you have a "best friend", maybe you don't need anymore.

And, most importantly, by not clinging to an earthly "best friend", you're one step closer to filling that hole in your heart that eventually longs to be filled with Jesus. We instinctively want to lean on someone, but when we lean on people, they tend to fall over with the weight of us. Jesus doesn't. I say, let's learn that now. No need to prolong that lesson.

I get it though, believe me, I get it. Not claiming to be holier than anyone here. I guess, if anything... just admitting a childhood hurt that is still governing my parenting. For better or worse.