A High School Student Prays About Friendship

High school student, Caroline Savoye, shares how changing her thought and turning to I Corinthians 13 healed a broken friendship.

By Caroline Savoye

Categories: Loving and Forgiving

Patience, love, and tolerance are all qualities that we as teenagers sometimes neglect to express. Although we do sometimes neglect them, this does not mean that they are not important.

I remember a time when I felt I was "on the outs" with a close friend of mine. This was hard for me to understand because we had always been able to talk about our problems and had always been so close. I could not seem to figure out what was wrong. Because of this, a sense of resentment towards this friend started to build up. I became impatient and envious. I started to lose hope that the situation would ever get better. Finally, it reached the point where things became unbearable for me, and I realized that there needed to be a change of thought. I turned to a well-known chapter in the Bible, which says:

Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. (I Cor. 13:4-8)

As I read these words, I realized how immature and selfish I had been. So many times we do not realize when we have become so wrapped up in ourselves. This situation presented a chance to be selfless, mature, and tolerant. Sometimes it takes one person to step up. I'm not saying that I'm always that person, but I knew I could be more mature in this case. One day, this friend and I bumped into each other and stopped to talk. We both said we should talk the whole situation through; we both realized we had been thinking similar things; and we thought the majority of the problem had been a misunderstanding. Although we still had things to work through, the fact that we both listened and were patient helped the whole situation go better. When we were both able to love each other and look past what we had both been so ignorant about, the situation turned itself around. Even though it can sometimes be hard to admit we are wrong and to see that someone else might be right, when we allow ourselves to love and to take selfishness and pride out of the way, things tend to get better. It certainly worked for me.