When Friendships End and God Doesn't
"Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will leave this life. The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord."
— Job 1:21
After reading this post, you might think I'm cynical. Bitter. Hurt. Someone who sees the glass half empty. Maybe you're right. Maybe you're not. Either way, this one is close to my heart — not from one lesson, but from many. Learned the hard way, more than once.
So it's time to share.
When I was a child, my mother said something to me that has stayed with me ever since. She looked at me and said, "Abigail, don't trust me."
I was floored. This was the woman I had known my entire life. The one who raised me, who traveled with me from Ghana to the States, who was my first everything. How could she say that?
I told her exactly that.
She explained: "Abigail, I am human and I will mess up too. Maybe one day I tell you I'm going to get you something and then I forget, or something comes up. What I said I would do — I didn't do."
As a child, I didn't fully understand it. As an adult, I think about it all the time.
Fast forward to the past decade or so. My mom was right.
Like many of us, I've experienced friendships that have proven that some relationships are for a season and very few are for a lifetime. I'm nowhere close to cracking the code on which is which — that might genuinely take a lifetime. But I have picked up some wisdom along the way, and after the end of several of these relationships, certain things still ring true.
I personally believe friendship breakups hit harder than romantic ones. That's just my take. There's something about the intimacy of a close friendship — the one that isn't romantic, isn't obligatory, just chosen — that makes the loss of it feel uniquely gutting. So this post is for those relationships, though I imagine it could apply to romantic ones too.
Here's what I've come to understand about why friendships end — and why you often can't see it coming from the beginning.
When I meet someone and a friendship forms, I genuinely never picture an ending to it. Even now, even after everything, I still refuse to live that way. But the reality is that with the many people we encounter throughout life, the likelihood of every single one staying is small. And that's not pessimism. That's just life doing what Job knew it would do — giving and taking away.
I don't think you can tell from the start whether a friendship will last. Yes, sometimes a person's character shows up early. You might even look back later and realize the signs were always there. But most people lead with their representative — a version of themselves that is curated, even if unintentionally. Think about how you show up to a job interview. That's not the full you. And that's not necessarily dishonest, it's human.
What I've learned is that even if you notice certain traits early on, there are a few things you simply can't predict. Whether two people can grow together through different seasons of life is one of them. Who you both are when you meet is not who you'll be in five years. Some people grow alongside each other. Others grow in different directions. Neither is wrong. It's just what happens.
How well you know yourself also matters more than I initially realized. When you haven't done the internal work of understanding who you are — your values, your needs, your non-negotiables — you don't have the gauge to know if someone is truly compatible with you. And when both people are in that same place, it makes it even harder.
And then there's purpose. This one is the most personal for me.
One of the reasons several of my adult friendships shifted — from close friends to acquaintances to no contact — came down to purpose and values. I don't drink and drive. I never have. And while I've always respected other people's choices, I found myself growing increasingly anxious in situations where I was out with friends who had been drinking and then drove home. I offered Ubers. I offered to drive. But you can't make people do what they don't want to do. Eventually, out of love for myself and my own peace, I had to step back from those dynamics. It wasn't about judgment. It was about recognizing that what I needed for healthy friendships and what was being offered weren't aligning. Knowing myself, truly knowing myself, gave me the clarity to make that call.
Your values and your purpose will shape your boundaries. And your boundaries will shape your relationships, whether you're conscious of it or not.
So what's the point of all of this?
Friendship breakups are inevitable. There is no checklist that will save you from the pain of them — trust me, I've looked. But that's not an invitation to close yourself off, to watch every new person with suspicion, or to bail the moment things get hard. Turbulence in a friendship doesn't mean it's over. And an ending doesn't mean it was a mistake.
What the losses have taught me, more than anything, comes back to Job.
The only person you are fully accountable for is you. People change. Life has chapters. But the most foundational relationship you have is the one you came into this world with — you and God. When that relationship is rooted and tended to, it becomes the thing that heals you when others leave, and the thing that helps you show up well for the ones who stay.
And when the hurt comes, because it will, I want to leave you with the prayer that has done more for my heart than any breakdown or analysis ever could:
"Lord, help me to see this experience the way You see it. Help me to see them and myself the way You see us. Help me to understand the hurt, feel it, process it, and allow You to repurpose it for Your glory."
That prayer has been everything for me. If you take nothing else from this post, I hope you take that.
Friendships are precious. Healing is worth it. And whatever season you're in right now — the gaining or the losing — you are not walking through it alone.
Until next time, Abigail 🤎
