When we don't get close to people, at least we know what to expect: nothing.

True happiness results less from money than from our relationships—with ourselves, with other people, and with God.

We long to find someone who has been where we've been, who shares our fragile places, who sees our sunsets with the same shades of blue. Soul mates. They somehow validate the depth of our experiences.

It's because a country-western song can start you out at a family picnic eating buttermilk-fried chicken and watermelon on your great-grandmother's quilt, with butterflies flitting about, and before it ends, your daddy's gone to prison and your momma's run off with the preacher and your little brother's blowing butterflies to dust with a BB gun.

Uncommon friends can speak their minds without fear. Imagine the tone David probably used with Jonathan when he asked, "What have I done? What is my crime? How have I wronged your father, that he is trying to take my life?" (v. 1).

There are elements of comedy that can be competitive and back stab-y, but one of the underreported sides is that we love each other and help each other, kind of like a messed up extended family.

What's the difference between a Spartan king and a mid-ranker? One man will lob this query to his mate as they prepare to bed down in the open in a cold driving rain. His friend considers mock-theatrically for a moment. .'The king sleeps in that shithole over there' he replies. 'We sleep in this shithole over here.

Let us be, then, warriors of the heart, and enlist in our inner cause the virtues we have acquired through blood and sweat in the sphere of conflict—courage, patience, selflessness, loyalty, fidelity, self-command, respect for elders, love of our comrades (and of the enemy), perseverance, cheerfulness in adversity and a sense of humor, however terse or dark.

Instead we are tapped into an unquenchable, undepletable, inexhaustible source of wisdom, consciousness, companionship. Yeah, we lose friends. But we find friends too, in places we never thought to look. And they're better friends, truer friends. And we're better and truer to them.

In defeat one learns who are friends to him, and by whom he is accounted friend.

The quality of your relationships will determine the quality of your life. And this is something worth praying about.

Rejection brings out the worst in people. Love and acceptance bring out the best.