The qualities I look for in my friendships.

Day 4: Five qualities you think are important in a friendship.

I think each person has different qualities they think are most important in their friendships, but here are mine.  I consider these for my closest friendships.  These qualities are in no particular order.

Time Together.  My love language is quality time, so probably the most important thing to me in a friendship is if we spend time together.  The more time we spend with each other, the more I feel close to my friends.  I love quality time.  If we only see each other once or twice a month, then our friendship probably won't be as close as it is when we see each other a few times a week.

Honesty.  I seek out honesty in my friends.  It's a quality I love.  The more I think about it, the more I realize how many "brutally honest" friends I have... Rebekah, Ali, and now Stephanie.  I love it.  With Stephanie, for example, you always know where you stand in her eyes.  She will hold you accountable in your life and expect for you to do the same for her.  She will always stand up for you to others.  She's very honest and very bold.  I admire and respect that so much.

Joy.  I think joy is one of the best qualities to have within a friendship.  After I re-found my faith in the Lord, I sought out friends who would encourage me rather than bring me down.  When you are around someone who is joyful, it shows in the way they act and in the things they say.  I look for friends who enjoy life and have joy that only the Lord can give them.  Of course, we might not always be happy, but joy always outshines day-to-day problems.

Love for the Lord.  I seek out friends who are eager to talk about faith with me, who are accountability and encouragement during hard times.  So often when I am struggling in my faith, my friends are the ones who bring me out of that doubt and encourage me to turn my eyes back on the Lord.  I try to do the same for them.  Of course, I do have friends who aren't believers and who don't share this love, but this is a quality I seek out in my closest friends.

Love for taking pictures.  Okay, this is the silliest one I have, but since the top four were very important, I thought I'd add this last one almost as a joke.  It's not so much that I want my friends to love taking pictures... but I love friends who don't mind posing in them, since I tend to take pictures of everything.  And if they do like to be the one who actually takes pictures, I'm fine with that too.  Once after I had fairly recently become friends with Stephanie, she said one night, "We should take some pictures and then you can put them on your blog!"  I was in heaven. ;)  Yes, this is silly... but I do love capturing memories with a camera.

Most of all, I love my friends for who they are.  I do seek out certain qualities in my friendships, but what I've found is that the Lord tends to bring us together without me having to search for certain kinds of people.  I love my friends so much.

What qualities do you look for in a friendship?