Best Friend Betrayal

Friendship Lost

I stared at my tear-filled eyes as I sat cross-legged in front of my bedroom’s dusty mirror, avoiding the checklist of assignments for my junior year of high school. I despised how the light of my phone reflected the mascara smeared all over my blemish-covered cheeks, but most of all, I despised how I had allowed my best friend to make me feel so abandoned.

Earlier that night, in the church parking lot, my first love, whom I had spent about a year trying to make into my first boyfriend, told me my best friend had confessed her undying feelings for him. He had decided to pursue her instead of me. My cheeks had abruptly reddened in rage. Sure, I knew boys broke hearts, but I had no idea best friends did.

I gazed down at my manicured thumbs, hovering over the blank text message I had yet to write. Our friendship was lost in its current form no matter what my fifteen-year-old self typed.

“I feel so lied to. I feel betrayed.” I hit Send, hoping for an admission of wrongdoing or a sign of remorse. Neither came.

I wailed from my core into the night, grieving the loss of the friend who knew me best.

Reflecting back on it now, this friend was the first friend to invite me into the Church, and, because of that, her friendship was deeply impactful for my formation. I trusted her as I would have trusted a sister. She had chosen to discard our connection for a temporary relationship, which was incredibly wounding and disorienting.

Even now, as an adult, I can see how that loss had hardening effects on my heart, planting seeds of cynicism about experiences of community. For years, I longed for reconciliation in that friendship, but even after her short-lived relationship with the boy I liked, she never attempted to regain my trust or rebuild our friendship. That rejection hurt more than the betrayal.

Sister, it is deeply painful when we entrust friends with our hearts and we are rejected, or when our care for them is not fully reciprocated. We can carry these wounds from childhood all the way into our adult lives, where the echoes of past hurts are heard in different kinds of losses in different seasons. Each loss adds to the wound and provokes questions about our belonging, not only in our communities, but in the eyes of Our Father.

As we mourn our lost friendships, we grapple with our inner void and the lie that we are alone, abandoned, lost. Yet in this week’s scripture, we hear, “For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10).

As we stand in the depths of our grief and cry out from our seemingly unloved, abandoned place, we are in the best posture to encounter the One who came to save all that was lost. Only in His incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection do we find that no friendships are truly lost in Him.

Sister, this does not erase our pain or eliminate our need to grieve. Yet with a Messiah who saves what is lost, who delights in the redemption of our wounds, we find that He reconciles us to Him and redeems our relationships, like the thoughtful Shepherd He is. It has been of immense consolation for me to remember this.

In heaven, a life of broken friendships is redeemed by an eternity of perfect union with God.

Reflection Questions

• Have you lost an important friendship? Did it go through a season of change, or is it completely behind you? Thank God for the love and lessons that were in it, even if it remains lost or stirs a painful memory.
• In Jesus, everything can be redeemed. If you are unsure about reaching out to a friend with whom you have had a hard time, bring her and the situation to prayer. What do you feel is a prompting of the Holy Spirit?