Friendships: Blessing or Burden?

I am a people pleaser. I care too much what people say about me or think of me. I am always striving to hold onto friendships that I need to release. These are three statements I would have said a few short months ago. My heart would break over a lost friend, and I would try to dissect myself to figure out why this person no longer desired my friendship. I would always be at a beckon call for a friend, fearing I'd lose them or they'd become upset with me. My personality is a little rough around the edges at times; I'm sarcastic, stubborn, and my meekness is often percepted as rudeness and/or snobiness. In reality, I'm tender-hearted, easily hurt, and easily taken advantage of. I struggled spiritually with this for quite some time. Didn't God require me to love others as He did? Unconditionally, never wavering, through low and high water? If I was loving my friends the way He designed me to, why did it always feel so wrong? Finally God explained to me that while I WAS loving, I was also abusing myself. Are we meant to carry a friend's burden? Yes. Are we meant to love our friends unconditionally? Yes. Are friendships designed to BE the burden in our lives? No. It has taken me so much time to know how thin the line actually is when it involves a friend, helping them carry their burden, but not letting my friendships become MY burdens. I will always love my friends, pray for them and encourage them. But I will no longer live to please my friends, or be weighed down by their weight. I have began to evaluate my friendships, and I've had to ask myself, " Is this friendship a blessing or a burden? Is this brother/sister in Christ HELPING carry the load or am I carrying this friendship?" God intended friendships to be a partnership, both working toward the same goal, not a tug of war, or even worse: you carrying the dead weight of your friend at the end of the rope. I've come to grips with the fact that not all friendships are designed to take residence in my life forever. I've come to grips with the friendships I've had to release and the future ones I'll have to bid farewell to. God has given me the ability to love the friends He has blessed me with deeply, and the strength to love myself enough to sever unhealthy and burdensome friendships. Do not make yourself sweat over a friend who doesn't break a sweat over you. Do not wipe your schedule clean for a friend that makes no effort to pencil you in. People will always make time for things/people they care about. So, care enough about yourself to take off the people pleaser coat and put on the robe of independancy! Friendships are a wonderful and beautiful blessing from God! Embrace the blessings and cut out the burdens.