Letter to a child on friendship (plain word for loyal):

It takes two when it used to take one, someone once said. It is good to be loyal, because, bottom line, people need friendship. You can be loyal when everyone else is not, when everyone else makes plans and breaks them, when everyone else gives you an afternoon when you wanted a day. Most parents, like myself, want you to be more loyal than dogs.
You can be loyal and wait all day into the afternoon and only get thirty minutes of a phone call. Didn’t God make all people to be loyal by human nature? Yes, most people will know the rules of how to be nice and share and listen, but many people still want their days tied in neat little packages with their own care and planning, just for themselves.
You can be loyal because you feel it’s the right thing to do and everyone else knows that too. But that kind of loyal can also rob your days when you could have got on with your day, painted a picture, or gone on a bike ride. That kind of loyal can also make you feel disappointed when you expected to spend a day doing fun things you normally can’t. That kind of loyal can make you sad, or what grown ups call bitter if you are not careful.
You may find yourself making that kind of loyal a neat package of your own, one that you only give to a few people that know how to receive it. That kind of loyal is for those that truly love you and will stick by you. When you find that kind of loyal in other people, it is a gift. Then, you realize something about being loyal: when others don’t see it the way you do, it’s not like they stole the gift away, it’s just that they didn’t need it. And more, it reveals you just may be the kind of person that needs that kind of loyal, which is a tender thing.
So, if you find that kind of loyal in about three people besides your parents in life, it is a huge gift. The others that have a little of that kind of loyal are still decent people; they just probably have other people giving them that kind of loyal. And what most adults forget is that God makes the rules on being loyal; He calls it love.
Who do I want you to have that kind of loyal from always? Your best friends, of course, and me. But what’s more, I want you to have that kind of loyal from God. He won’t ever take your loyal and leave you hanging high and dry. In fact, He will give you even more loyal than you have in yourself, so much that you will find it flowing out of you onto others. He will show you He is the source of all your loyal and showed you how to give it before you knew He was there. Yes, your little packages of loyal will discarded or broken, but that little fact about Him holds you together when they are. Child, He gives you Himself.