7 deadly Friendships
We have all experienced the highs and lows of friendship. But there are those friendships that have lefts us with more hurt and questions than we would ever really like to admit. When this happens, we tend to question ourselves and what we did wrong or could have done differently. In the book Mary gives clear insight into the reality of the friends that hurt us. She helps you gain perspective on the type of friendship you may have encountered or may encounter in the future. She gives practical advise on how and when to move forward. She points crucial red flags. But most importantly she gives sound biblical advice on friendships, deadly ones, and what we should do to heal from the past and be aware moving forward.
She correlates the 7 Deadly Friendships to the 7 things that God hates from Proverbs 6:16-19
“There are six thing the Lord hates- no, seven thing he detests: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that kill the innocent, a heart that plots evil, feet that race to do wrong, a false witness who pours out lies, a person who sows discord in a family.” Mary gives the 7 Deadly Friendships creative names:
Narcissist Nolan
Unreliable Uma
Predator Paige
Conman Connor
Tempter Trevor
Faker Fiona
Dramatic Drake
The book opens with a chapter dedicated to each type of deadly friend. The reality, we have all experienced one or all seven of these types of friends in our lives. Maybe not to quite the extreme of the stories that represent each friendship, but we can correlate past painful relationships with these types of friends. The hard part, reading at the end of each of these chapters to determine if you are one of these types of friends, or have the tendency to be one of these types of friends. There was a time in my life I was most certainly a Dramatic Drake and I still have those tendencies. But though the power of the Holy Spirit I can recognize when I feel the urge to be dramatic and allow the Holy Spirit to help me.
The second half of the book is where Mary really hits a homerun. She ties it all together with the stories of Joseph from the Old Testament and Jesus from the New Testament. She highlights their encounters with each of these types of friends and how God saw them through the tough relationships and brought His glory on the other side.
Three of the biggest takeaways from the book is 1) it is okay to grieve relationships, 2) our expectations in relationships and 3) forgiveness.
Grieving: I have for years walked with friends through the pain of hurtful and broken relationships and the one thing I have always said, you have to grieve what you have lost and there is nothing wrong with that. Mary echoes this throughout her book. Grieving friendship is okay, but we grieve with a hopeful heart listening to our Father on how to move forward, because we must move forward.
Expectations: Mary nails expectations on starting on page 182. She talks about the importance of managing our expectations so that we can handle our friendships in healthy manner. Our expectations not only affect our encounters with deadly relationships but also those healthy ones too.
Forgiveness: We must learn to forgive those who have hurt us and forgive ourselves when we have hurt someone. Forgiveness is a choice that often times has to be made over and over, we cannot give up on forgiveness because we tried once and it didn’t work, keep forgiving. Forgiveness was given, and we must freely give it. That does not make it easy, but it makes it necessary.
I encourage you to pick this book up, it can be a book of help you walk through a difficult time, a book of reference if you feel like you are encountering a difficult friendship, and a frame of reference if you feel like you are struggling as a friend. We must not let painful friendship steal the joy of relationship!
I received an Advanced Reader Copy from the publisher.