It’s day 10 of the series 31 Days of Lessons Learned from My 20’s. Today, however, I’m also guest posting at DevotionalDiva.com. It’s probably the most transparent post I’ve ever written, and there’s several lessons from my 20’s in it too. I hope you’ll check it out.

If you want to read all the posts in this series, you can find every post listed here. If you want to have all the posts delivered to your email inbox, subscribe here.

It’s kind-of cliché, I know, but you’ve heard the old saying “Boyfriends come and go but friends will be friends forever”. Well, it’s pretty much true. That is if you keep your friends around.

The other day on Facebook I asked my readers what’s one lesson they learned in their 20’s. One of my college sorority sisters responded. She wrote,

“I would have put more effort into my friends and less into boyfriends…so many relationships with girlfriends faded that I miss”. 

Yes, I thought, yes! Me too! 

I didn’t date a lot at all in college, at all, so I can’t say that during those four years I put more effort into boyfriends. It was after college for me.

After college I started dating this boy. This boy God told me was not the one. But I kept dating him anyway.

When it ended four years later (another lesson for another day – almost never date for four years!) – I didn’t have a big network of friends. I hadn’t kept up with my friends from college. All I had was life with this boy. 

Your friends matter.

God created us for community. We are not meant to do life alone. Think about it? Did Jesus do life alone? No, He found 12 close friends to do life with.

The same is true for us.

Even if you’re single, you’re not meant to do life alone.

When the day comes, and your prince pops the question, it won’t be half as fun as if you have friends to share it with. 

And then when you look down and see two little pink lines on a plastic stick telling you you’re going to be a mom, you’ll want someone to answer the phone and hear your news – then throw you a shower. 

When you’re husband gets sick – like really, really sick – you’ll want a friend’s shoulder to cry on in the hospital courtyard. 

Or when that same husband makes you so mad you feel like you’re going to get in the car and drive until you reach the ocean, you’ll want a friend to speak truth to you and tell you not to leave. 

And before all of this, when that boy you’re spending too much time with is really nothing more than bad news, you’ll want a friend to be honest with you. 

I know it’s common and quite ordinary for girls to drop their friends when they start dating someone seriously. But resist the urge. Not only will you miss your friends when they’re gone, but maintaining healthy friendships helps you to resist the urge to move too quickly or make that boy an idol.

Just trust me on this one.

Invest in your friendships more than your boyfriends.

How do you maintain friendships while dating?