Choosing to Take Advantage

Have you ever noticed that it is usually your friends (or those who purport to be) who wind up taking advantage of you and your good nature?
Often people are willing to play the friend card when they need something from you and then when the chairs reverse suddenly being friends isn't quite as important.
This whole things goes right along with the never loan your friends money rule. I've seen it happen again and again that you can loan friends money only to have them despise you in the end for it. If they need to borrow money and you loan it, then they know they have a debt, then they start to avoid you so that it won't come up in conversation, soon they are harder to find than 4 leaf clovers and before you know it, you hear from someone else something they have said about you. What has happened is that while you may truly not care about the money, they care that they owe you and begin to obsess about it which causes them discomfort. Better to give the money outright if you want to maintain a friendship.
And often friends can always see the need they have in a situation but are really hard pressed to be concerned about your need in return.
I guess what we all need to do is to be very careful who we call our friends.
True friends are the ones who seem to know when you need them, who try to help you even when it is difficult for them to do so, who want you to succeed and while they may not be able to help you succeed they won't do anything that makes it more difficult for you to.
I am blessed with a handful of GOOD friends. They all know who they are. They have been there for me during my highest highs and my lowest lows. They are the same today, yesterday and tomorrow.
My heart goes out to people I know who have those "fair weather" friends who do a lot of pronouncing of their friendship but have no actions to back it up.
I am grateful for my friends and wonder often how I was so lucky to have God give them to me.