Maintaining friendships is loving. Maintaining friendships is an act of love.
We’re on this earth for relationship
Whether we grow with GOD, or we grow with others, it is relationship that motivates us to be better and do better with one another.
Accountability
Other people who’ve known us a long time can make us accountable. They remind us of where we’ve come from and we are less likely to pretend who we are with them, because they know our roots.
Maturity
Others who’ve known us a long time can remind us of how far we’ve matured. Long ago, we were children. Now, we can see our childhood from a healthy frame of reference, through the eyes of our memory but also through the shared history with others. We gain a perspective when we connect with old friends that we might not otherwise see.
Value
Others who’ve known us a long time help us to remember valued people in our lives. We remember the friend. We remember those we knew together. We remember them and remember ourselves as well. And those who remember us, and stay in touch with us, show we are valued.
When we stay in touch with another person from long ago, we are saying to them, they were — and are — of value to us.
Love has no boundaries
Love isn’t bound by time or distance. Love doesn’t have to diminish even when there’s a lack of contact. The heart can remain loyal to someone who has been dear to us, whether or not we are in touch regularly.
But if you want to show love to someone from your past, simply getting in touch will do that.
Love “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.” (1 Corinthians 13:7-8a)
Not even time and distance diminish love. Old friends stand the test of time, and are a testament to love.