A friend is someone who knows our faults yet finds our virtues too. This is shown from the story about two friends who were walking through the desert; at some point of the journey, they had an argument and one slapped the other in the face.

The one who got slapped was hurt. Without saying a word, he wrote in the sand, "Today my best friend slapped me in the face.’

They kept on walking until they found an oasis where they decided to take a bath. The one who got slapped got stuck in the mire and started drowning, but his friend saved him. After he recovered from near drowning, he wrote on a stone, "Today my best friend saved my life.”

The friend who has slapped and saved his best friend asked him, "After I hurt you, you wrote in the sand and now you have wrote on the stone. Why?”

The friend replied, "When someone hurts us we should write it down in the sand where the winds of forgiveness can erase it. But when someone does something good for us we should engrave it on a stone where no wind can ever erase it.”

We should all learn to write what hurts us in the sand and engrave precious moments on stone. They say it takes a minute to find a special person, an hour to appreciate them, a day to love them and an entire lifetime to forget them.

Take time to live! Do not value the things you have in your life but value who you have in your life.

Remember that friends are very rare jewels indeed. They make you smile and encourage you to succeed, they lend an ear, they share words of praise and they always want to open their hearts to us. Never hurt your friend.

Ends