our friends are not who we think they are

According to the lovely wikipedia, only about 1/9 of an iceberg is visible above water. Thus the expression, "this is only the tip of the iceberg." It means that what you see is definitely not all you're going to get. That there could be much more to the issue or problem at hand.

I've decided people, and especially my friends are icebergs. This may seem like a lame analogy, but hear me out. Or read me out I guess, haha.

If you think about it, you spend maybe about 1/10 to 1/15 of your life with your friends. I mean, this could vary widely based on how social you are, how much free time you have... but to use my life as an example, I probably spend about 1/10 of my life with friends. And I spend maybe half of that time with close friends. And maybe about 1/3 of that time in one on one situations where we may be completely open and honest with each other.

If you are similar to me in this situation, than you might agree with what I am going to say. Our friends go so much deeper than the 10% we get to see. When we all put on that laughing, smiling persona, what is really going on inside? Are most of us just temporarily forgetting the things in our lives that trouble us or make us sad?  Did that beautiful girl over there struggle with a severe eating disorder in high school? Is that jokester guy fighting back self esteem issues and putting himself down when he looks in the mirror every day? Is that single mom, who loves her kids more than anything in the world, crying herself to sleep at night when she feels like she can't do this alone?

One of my absolute favorite hymns is "Lord, I Would Follow Thee." And there is one line in particular that I love. "In the quiet heart is hidden sorrow that the eye can't see." What are we not seeing every day? How much of the bigger picture are we missing when we stand around in parking lots laughing and joking with our friends?

I'm not calling you all to repentance or saying we all need to be better friends or anything like that. But I've been thinking a lot about how important it is to try to think about what the person next to me may be feeling. What is going on in their life? What struggles do they have right now? Because we ALL have them. That 90% of time we don't see our friends, they are all living life just as much as we are.

There is waaaaaaaaay more to every person than meets the eye. Good, bad, happy, sad. One more quote that goes through my head quite often is from the movie The Help. Aibileen is narrating the end of the movie and she says, "No one ever asked me what it felt like to be me." I'm going to work on that. I won't pry into everyone's business, but I will try to keep in mind that I don't even know a chapter of their full story.

Peace and Blessings!!