Make new friends,

But keep the old,

One is silver and the other gold!

Friends are one of the most important choices we make in life.  The above picture is of a group of girls I grew up with. We have sung together our whole lives!  My Mom organized our first singing group when we were in elementary school, and called us The Sunbonnet Sisters.  When we entered our teens, we became The Teen Tones as pictured above. We enjoyed singing and traveling around to various churches and special events for many years.

When we left our teens we  renamed our group The Chaverim Singers.  Over the years, we all married and went our separate ways, but still manage to keep in touch.  Last year we had a reunion concert at our home church, Latonia Christian Church.  It was funny and sweet to realize that to our hometown and church, we will eternally be “The Teen Tones”.  If you would like to hear us sing, you can go to the Facebook page  Teen Tone Reunion.

These ladies are truly my wonderful “golden friends”.  Even though we don’t all live near each other, we like to get together every 3 to 4 months to just “hang out” and catch up on life.  I am truly blessed to have such wonderful friends!

So just what is it that makes friends true friends, and what makes friendships last?  An easy formula for friendship can be found in this acrostic.

F – Fun

R – Respect

I – Include

E – Encourage

N – Nice

D – Dependable

1. Friends have fun together, and plan times to do things that everyone enjoys.  In the case of my “Teen Tone” friends, the fun was singing together and still is!  We spent many hours picking out music, practicing and traveling to various places to sing.  Our fun was music and singing!
2. Friends respect each other.  Friends truly care about each other and cherish the good qualities of their friend.  Too many times friendships are torn apart by criticism and jealousy over minor things. Friends can disagree, but respect each other’s opinions and work out differences. Fortunately, this was the case with my singing sisters and that’s why our friendship still exists.
3. Friends include you in their lives.  If you are truly friends, you want to be together.  I have so many fond memories of hanging out at Joanna’s home almost every Sunday afternoon.   We had countless sleep overs, meals, parties, rehearsals, riding “Specks” the horse, and just good old “hanging out” time together!  Her family was our family.   This was especially important to several girls in our group that had no father at home.   The time we spent together and our foundation of faith in Christ is the glue that continues to hold friendship together.  Because of this inclusiveness, we have so many wonderful stories we enjoy retelling each other, our friends, our families, children and grandchildren.
4. Encouragement is a huge part of friendship.  Life always has bumps and is never perfect.  Several of the girls in “The Teen Tones” didn’t have a Dad at home. Jewell, Joanna’s Dad, was just that – a true jewel to all of us girls.  He was funny, kind, a wonderful artist and we all appreciated his advice and encouragement. Louise, Joanna’s Mom kept us in line, cooked countless meals for us and was also our choir director at church. The Peebles’ were huge fans and encouragers of “The Teen Tones”, and helped to shape our lives through their encouragement! We girls were there for each other too.  Growing up can be difficult, especially in the teen years and entering adulthood.  It was nice to have a group that you could be a part of to talk through and pray about problems together – boyfriends, college and career choices, and life in general.
5. Friends are nice to each other and say kind things to each other. It always hurts me to hear how cruel children can be to each other at school.  Phrases like “I’m not going to be your friend”, or “You’re stupid”, and so many other phrases cut to the quick and leave wounds in a child.  My singing sisters and I didn’t always agree, but we tried to be kind to each other.  If there were unkind things said, they have faded from my memory.
6. Friends are dependable.  In a world where things are constantly changing, we all need someone and something to depend on. It is the foundation of what our life is built on.  My singing sisters were friends I could depend on.  They were there for me and I was there for them no matter what we were going through.  Our families all supported us and loved us too.  We all depended on that support and love from them and each other. Our foundation of faith, and growing up in the church also gave us a faith foundation to help us through the good times, big life decisions and the storms of life.  That dependability helped shape us into strong and dependable adults so that we in turn could foster that in our families, children, jobs, churches and the corner of the world that we influence.

For the past two weeks our superpower word at school is “friendship”.  My students and I have been singing songs about friends and talking about how important friends are.  While we sing the song “Friendship”, we use the ASL sign for friend.  The sign for friend uses both index fingers which are linked back and forth as if they are hugging.

I hope that I can plant seeds in my students about being a good friend.  As a line in the song I wrote “Friendship” goes – “To have a friend, you have to be a friend.”  The world could be a much better place if we practice that.