What makes for a friend?

Like many people, I am blessed to have many friends, and tons of acquaintances.  However, probably also like many people, I have perhaps only a handful of really good, close friends.  You know the kind... These are the people in my life with whom I can be totally and even brutally honest, not having to filter my words or my thoughts before putting them out there.  These are the people in my life with whom I can completely relax.  These are the people in my life with whom I can be totally at ease in about, oh, two minutes.

Friends like this are amazing; they are an incredible gift in my life.  These are the people who know me... who know me... and yet who are my friends anyhow!  It blows me away.

Friends like this seem immune to the distances that can be caused by either geography or time.  I might not see or talk with one of these friends for months, sometimes even years... yet, when we are together again, it's like no time has elapsed at all.

How does that work?  What makes for a friend, anyhow?  Surely there's something about shared stories, shared memories, shared times spent together in formative ways.  But to be honest, I really don't know how someone, even with whom I might disagree politically or theologically, can be my friend... yet they sometimes are.  It's a mystery to me.

But about these special kinds of friends that sometimes come along in our lives, I have one comment and one hope.  The comment is - I am profoundly grateful for such people in my own life; they truly are gifts that make me rich beyond measure.  The hope is - May I be that kind of friend for someone else.