Walk With The Wise

Walk with the Wise

Walk with the wise and become wise; associate with fools and get in trouble.

I wore a sunflower sweatshirt to my first middle school dance. It was my twelfth birthday, and my parents had agreed to host a slew of my friends for a sleepover that night. It’s a mercy that I even had friends, considering the bulky sweatshirt and fish earrings I wore, combined with geeky glasses and Rapunzel-length hair. But, despite our dubious fashion choices and all the time we spent primping, we managed to arrive on time for the school dance.

I still remember the sweltering gym, the semidarkness punctuated by strobe lights, the thump of bass in the music. Teachers gathered on the edges as chaperones, while we middle schoolers awkwardly slow-danced or moved with wild abandon. I remember scoping out my crush, looking to see who was dancing with whom.

But, most of all, what I remember is the crying. Without fail—at that dance and every other middle school dance I attended in the next three years—some girl would end up crying in the bathroom over a relationship gone wrong. Sometimes it was over a friend; sometimes it was over a crush. No matter the reason, the lesson I learned early on was that it matters who you choose to let influence you.

Proverbs says to walk with the wise and become wise, because the alternative is bound to get you in trouble. Those drama-filled middle school years I’m thankful I never have to repeat? They were bearable because of my friends. I knew Katie, Kristina, Teresa, Tammy, and others were trustworthy. They worked hard in school. They cared about volunteering in our community, about advocating for our classmates through things like student council. And they also cared about their friends, including me.

I still have a shoebox full of old notes from those friends, scribbled on college-ruled paper, folded in elaborate shapes. Those letters were amusing and encouraging, but they were also influential. They provided accountability for me, urging me in subtle ways to make good choices. Those wise friendships carried me through middle school dances, into high school and beyond.

— Kristin

— Today’s Act of Friendship —

Ask a friend if you can be accountable to each other in pursuit of a common goal.