Locking Arms

The beginning of the end has come. On Friday night I shed my first tear, tears that I had been putting off and postponing for as long as I could. I bid farewell to a dear friend, and it wasn’t a hug and a wave, but for the first time I had the guts to tell her what she had meant to me and how she has been important in my life here.

Oh man. It was so tough.

Today was my last Sunday in Sungai Nibong Gospel Hall. Anyone that has ever asked me would know how much I love it there. The church members have been so kind, warm and welcoming, I thank God for leading me there and to have had the privilege to know such wonderful people. Saying goodbye to them?

It was even tougher.

As I sit and write this, I’m really coming to the end of my time in university, and I’m struggling to deal with this ‘new’ experience: saying goodbye.
Looking back, it shouldn’t be something new since I’ve had at least 3 major transitions in my life, but during those significant times of parting, I don’t recall it ever being so difficult or heart wrenching:
Standard 6 to Form One; Form 5 to Form 6; Form 6 to Uni.

Now however, my group of friends here are from all over Malaysia and saying goodbye may mean goodbye for months, years or perhaps even forever. Which is a depressing thought, as I have gotten really close to certain people who’ve come to have a special place in my heart, and as cliché as it may sound, great friends that I love.

Chapter 1 - Study Question 4: What prompted you to read this book? Why now?

Ironically, this wasn’t my course text book. Someone passed me a book to put back in the PKA Library, and its entitled Friendships That Run Deep. Although my exams were just around the corner, I found myself unable to resist reading, first a few pages, then a chapter, then the whole book. The title prompted me the most, because now is the time, more than ever, where I’m at a loss at how to handle my friendships. God's timing is perfect.

The book talks about how friendship requires the choice of unmasking. As I think about the friends I have, the different levels (acquaintances, close friends and intimate friends), I know some have seen me masked, most have seen me partially unmasked and only a rare few have seen me completely unmasked, in all my vulnerability- unprotected, subject to attack and defenseless.

William Barclay articulates a question we all could ask: “I wonder if there is anyone to whom I would open my heart?”
The philosopher Seneca gave the answer: “If you wish to be loved, love.” There is no other way. The journey begins in unmasking, where there will always be risks and the very real danger if pain.

In three years, most of my first year was spent having surface friendships. Then again, building up trust takes time, and time takes time. I admit I was holding back, cautious of not getting attached because of experiences where I’ve cared for friends and had my heart trampled on in return. Only in my second year did I open up to some and finally, being in third year I took bolder steps of reaching out to friends, allowing them to see that I truly valued them and risked giving more than I’d receive. As I listed down the names of people I have to say farewell to, I realize I have 8 people whom I love dearly, and will feel the deep pain of parting ways. These are the people who have shared my struggles, my thoughts, my shame, my joy and my tears.

Friendships grow through intentional choices for loyalty. If I reach out to you, you may choose to ignore me, or worse reject me. The vulnerability of showing my true identity can set me up for one more heartbreak. If I trust you, even a little, you hold in your hands the power to hurt me. The choice to be loyal to a friend is oxygen given or oxygen withheld. To say yes breathes life into a relationship; to say no leads to eventual death. Love is an act of will- namely, both an intention and an action. Will also implies choice. We do not have to love. We choose to. By our everyday choices we decide to lock hearts in loyal commitments to one another.

Not everyone chooses to care for another in intentional acts of loyal friendship, and that’s why we carry scars from childhood friends who chose to belong to others and left us behind. I “replaced” my best friend in Standard 3. Karma always catches up and in Form 1 I was “replaced” by my friends.

The words of C.S. Lewis: Christ who said to His disciples, “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you,” can truly say to every group of Christian friends “You have not chosen one another but I have chosen you for one another.”

I had read a saying before and it stuck in my mind, “We can’t choose our family, but thank God we can choose our friends.” Reading the line in the book again, You have not chosen one another but I have chosen you for one another got me thinking. Put in that light, my friends are more than what I’ve believed them to be all this while. God chose them for me because he knew who I’d need and when I’d need them. And I can see that now.

Seasons of Friendship

It is good to spend time talking sharing and getting to where the truth is between us, content with being friends and not merely doing friendship. Change doesn’t come easily, for it is hard, sometimes painful and often complicated; it need not, however, be fatal. Where friendships often get lost is when unstated expectations are not met and feelings get hurt. This is the reality, friends change and so do friendships.

Life’s road divides before us and the journeys we take may lead to different places. Friendships flourish and grow, they change and grow, and sometimes there is a separation. Kahil Gibran wrote, “When you part from your friend, you grieve not: For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.”

How do you know when it’s time to bring closure to a friendship and move ahead? The necessary step is for one of you to unmask and ask honest questions about the relationship. Assessing the value of the friendship requires asking hard questions.

1. Is it worth the continuing expenditure of my resources? (of time and energy?)
2. Is it worth the risks involved?
3. Do we see a mutual future in it?
4. Am I merely hanging on for old times sake and not wisely discerning that its time for me to sell and reinvest my resources elsewhere?

Trying to answer the 4 questions for the 8 names I listed down was easy for some, and tough for others.

Is it worth my resources? Yes, definitely.
Is it worth the risks? For some I am willing to take the risk, for others I fear more burns and scars that I’ve experienced before.
Mutual future? I think so. I hope so. Some give me the sense that they want to move on, and I’ll just have to accept it.
Hanging on? It feels like it only just begun. But I know I have been hanging on to one friendship that I perhaps should let go of because I just can’t take the disappointment anymore.

I’d like to put the blame on Swee Kit for making me go through the whole ’saying your goodbyes’ process, which she brought up during our Graduating Seniors Retreat way back in February. Back then, it seemed like there was plenty time to make peace with leaving, and now I find myself with only 4 days.

Four days to tell the people who've impacted my life tremendously that I love them very much.



*Parts in blue are taken from the book*