One evening last Summer I was visiting some friends, and we began a discussion about people whose lives are difficult, who in turn make your own life more complicated by involving you in theirs. Their complications are often seemingly brought on themselves, and for some unknown reason they are drawn to you and want to latch on. I had always wondered why it was that I kept attracting this kind of individual, and questioned whether there was something wrong with me....some negative characteristic or personality flaw.

My friends told me about a lady who had been one of their very dearest friends for almost all their lives. Her life was a perpetual mess. She seemed to get herself into more jams, and most of them were her own doing. They told me about some of the problems she had had, and that they had been through a lot with her. My friends are perfectly stable, normal people who live quiet, uncomplicated lives. They couldn't say the same for their poor, pitiful friend. I had met her on one occasion, and she did strike me as a sort of a "ding-bat," although highly intelligent and well-educated.

My friends, being very much in tune with their spirituality, and the wife being a psychology major, pointed out that those friends of ours who can't seem to "get it together" are not necessarily attracted to us by any problems with our own personalities or characters; but rather our inner strength. And God puts them in our lives not necessarily for their benefit but for perhaps ours. It could very well be that it is us who needs them more for our character-building and spiritual growth.

And so, when I told Marcia about this conversation and what I had learned from it, she transformed it all into this beautiful poem. Thank you, Marcia.