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Genuine friendship is hard to define in language; words cannot adequately explain the impact such a friend has on one's life. Particularly challenging is the unique embodiment of friendship found within each unique friend. However, many have tried to put such a friendship into words, and many poignant, memorable sayings have been recorded and passed on, each possessing puzzle pieces of truth into the quintessence of a friend.

Puzzle Piece #1: We aren't perfect.
"The only way to have a friend is to be one." Ralph Waldo Emerson

Unfortunately, us people are prone to fail, at least from time to time. Despite our best attentions, we sometimes forget our friend's birthday, unthinkingly (or once in awhile purposefully) blurt out something deeply hurtful, and often times, we lose touch. In the above quote, Emerson asserts the proven truth that we cannot be self-seeking to gain true friendship. If we want to be forgiven for our shortcomings and mistakes, we need to forgive the mishaps and hurts generated by our friend. When we display an unconditional love to the people around us, undoubtedly we will achieve their friendship. Charlotte Bronte summed it up another way, saying, "If we would build a sure foundation in friendship, we must love friends for their sake than for our own." Not for what a person can provide us, sure friendship is found in our forgiveness and love simply because we value that friend completely.

Puzzle Piece #2: We aren't perfect.
"A friend loves at all times." Proverbs 17:17

Stepping on the tails of the previous point, one that does well to be reiterated, friendship is begun with our forgiving disposition, and it is nurtured with such an attitude returned. Real relationship grows when both people accept each other, bad hair days and all. As Elbert Hubbard pinpointed, "Your friend is the man who knows all about you, and still likes you." Now, that's friendship, knowing that when you find yourself a mess, your friend hasn't left. Walter Winchell's famous saying, "A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out," depicts those hard times when most have shunned and deserted us, but one remains. I can think of only a handful of people in my life who have fitted that description, and even though they have hurt me at other times, I remain dearly indebted to them for those dark moments when I had no one else and they encapsulated the grace I needed.

Puzzle Piece #3: An Intimacy of Spirit
"A friend is someone who knows the song in your

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