Yield to the New

When do you let go?

There are many instances in life where people enter your world and stay for various amounts of time. Some will stay for many years and become confidants and advisers, others will be present for a brief moment and gently nudge you in the direction that life is taking you. Each day we are presented with new people that can either influence us positively or can send us spiraling into a sea of chaos. I have had many friends in my life and my biggest challenge has been when to let go of a friend. What do you do when the friendship has run its course and it is obviously time to move on.

I had this friend in flight school who was basically my brother. We did everything together. A day didn't go by when we weren't either studying, flying, or partying together. If there was an airplane that needed to be flown we would do it, if there was an exam that needed to be passed we would ace it, if there was a party that was being thrown we were there. In environments such as flying it is important to have people that you trust and someone who can make you relax when the stress level gets to high. We were that for each other and it seemed as if we would be friends forever........that is until life got in the way.

It happens all the time doesn't it? Life changes for one person and the other is left holding the remnants of what the life used to be. In this situation, I lost a daughter, changed careers, and started the process of adopting a child......all in a two month period! The life that I knew was gone and all of a sudden a friendship built on one house was being forced into another.

There are times when all of that forcing does more damage than good.

This world that we live in is very strange in the sense that there are so many people that live on this spinning rock and yet we know so few. God always gives us who we need and what we can handle. He will provide us with the right people at the right time and therefore we are never alone....we just need to open our eyes to those being put into our life. Look into your life and try and find those people that were there at times when you needed them. We all have them....and sometimes those people fall away as our experiences pull us in different directions.

I always like the analogy of each of us travelling on our highways of Life. People get on the highway with us and may drive until the next exit or they may stay for hundreds of miles. At some point they come to the exit that they need to get off at and they gently put on their blinker and slide off to the exit ramp and continue on their way. We may hear from them again through phone calls, letters, emails.....but their time with us is done. They served a purpose for us and we for them....maybe they will get back on our highway further on down the road and maybe they won't....God only knows.

I still think about my friend from flight school and hope that his life is filled with happiness and joy. He is a good man and someone that will go very far in life. Our highways may cross again and when they do I will greet him with a smile and a hug, but right now God needs us at different places and who am I to challenge that.

Cherish your friends for they are gifts given to you by our Father. They are in your life for a reason and you never know when they will be called to a different job. This world is filled with so many people and we can only hope to meet a fraction of those who are out there. When somebody new enters your life make sure to treat them well for they play a vital role in the direction your life is supposed to go. Listen to where God is sending you and open your heart to those who are His voice.

Enjoy the drive......use your blinker.......and yield to those entering from the right.......you never know who they might be.