Of Salamanders and Friendships

As we hiked along a woodland creek last weekend, my young friend found a salamander, and like many children her age, she planned to take it home as a pet. She carried it lovingly down the trails, asking me what salamanders eat, noting that the creature liked water, and voicing ideas of a big tub to keep it in. But when I told her she would have to let it go, she couldn't bear the thought of parting with her new friend. I tried to explain: the salamander would likely die in captivity, and if she really cared for it, she wouldn't want it to be unhappy just so she could enjoy it. It was not made to live in a tub -- it was made for the creek, right there in the woods. At last she was convinced, though she held off the parting as long as possible before bidding the salamander a fond farewell.

"That's how it is with all friends," I told her. "If you're not made to live in the same place, you enjoy each other for a while, then you go and live where you were made to live." A lesson for us all, I thought. Aren't we so often like this in our friendships? People make us happy, and we want to keep them, caged up, if need be, for ourselves. We possess our friends. We get hurt if their lives don't run parallel to ours. But it's only because we love them so much, isn't it? No, in reality, it's pure selfishness. We have no right to own another's life. It is unfair and confining to the others and only a burden on ourselves to try to keep them for our own benefit.

Yes, some of us are made to live in the same places. But only the Maker can decide where each of His creatures will call home, thus, only He can decide who our fellow creatures will be. The parameter of where we were "made to live" includes not only the corner of earth we call home, but what makes it home to us -- the things we're passionate about, the things that feed our souls, the specific work God has given us to do. If a friend, dear as that friend may be, cannot share all this, we should not try to force a fish to fly or a bird to swim, so to speak. Granted, some do. And what a blessing such friends are! But let us not have too much sorrow over those who truly are made for a different place in life than the one designed for us. We may enjoy each other when we meet, then go in freedom to fulfill our purpose where we each were made to live until the day that all our true friends -- our family in Christ -- will share one great Home.

But now God has set the members, each one

of them, in the Body just as He pleased.

And if they were all one member,

where would the Body be?

1 Corinthians 12:18-19