True friends

Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. said, “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” I don’t ever want it to be said that I was a silent friend!

False friends are like our shadows, keeping close to us while we walk in the sunshine but leaving us when we cross into the shade. Real friends stick with us when trouble comes. As the old saying goes: in prosperity our friends know us; in adversity we know our friends.

If there are people in your life who would go to battle with you, value them, for they are rare indeed.

It’s said that a friend is someone . . .

who will keep your secrets and never divulge them—even if tortured or tempted with chocolate (or in my wife’s case, Krispy Kreme doughnuts).

who will quietly destroy the photograph that makes you look like a beached whale.

who knows you don’t know what you’re talking about but will let you reach that conclusion independently.

who goes on the same diet with you—and off it with you too.

John C. Maxwell, Winning with People: Discover the People Principles That Work for You Every Time (Nashville, TN: HarperCollins Leadership, 2007).

Austin Gardner's gleanings