Friends....!!

So I got up this morning and had about 3 posts rolling around in my head. I actually have been rolling a couple of them around a couple days. I thought I would try to blog this morning before church, but there were too many people that needed my help getting ready so I am just now getting to writing out what is in my head.

I have gotten a lot of feedback the last couple of days from people about my blog. Verbal feedback that is. I am actually surprised to hear how many people actually read it. I mean, I know I have followers, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they keep current. Being the dork that I am, I just assume that b/c I haven't gotten any comments on the blog it means that people either aren't reading it or aren't really enjoying it. I know better than to make assumptions, but I do any way. I was surprised to hear that one friend in particular reads every post. I am thrilled, but surprised. It shouldn't matter to me, I know, whether people read or not (I stated that in a previous blog), but it was really encouraging to hear from a couple different people that they are reading and enjoying. I guess I am one to leave comments and give feedback, I automatically assume others are the same way. I can see that not everyone is that way. Enough of that.

So, this morning getting ready for church I was brought to tears thinking about how many friends I have. Now, I would have told you a year ago that I didn't really have any friends. I considered myself to have a lot of acquaintances, but not friends. Honestly, I have felt very alone for a lot of my life. My best friend is my husband and my children are a huge part of my life, so I didn't feel totally alone, but I didn't really feel like I had really great friends.

I realize now that I have tons and tons of friends; I just needed to change my perspective and look around at what was there. I also needed to start being a good friend and allowing people into my life, heart and world. So many people in my life have been there reaching out; I just seemed to isolate myself. I thought that people were distant from me, but I have been the distant one all along. I have had a lot of friends for a long time, but I couldn't see it. They have all been my friends on their side and from their perspective; it was my perspective that kept everyone at a distance. They were never really distant; I only perceived that they were distant. I can see it now; I can receive it now; I can believe it now; I have been healed so much and have become whole enough that I am not afraid to have friends anymore. I don't need to protect myself. As a matter of fact, I can reach out and be friends to others who may feel alone and isolated, who need me to reach out and bridge the gap.

I am so grateful that I can see it now. I am so grateful that I have so many great people in my life. I also see so many potential friends in my life that I just need to nurture. As I really pondered it this morning, I was struck with such a sense of blessing and gratitude.

I have friends that I have known since I met the Lord, from the first church I went to. I have friends that were in my home group at the Village. I have friends in my Celebrate Recovery group. I am making some really great friends at Providence Community and my Missional Community. I also see the potential to get to know and be friends with many others that I am just now getting to know at church . I have some really amazing friends I have met through the PTA and my daughters school; I see many potential friends there too. As I become more open and invested in making relationships that are not disposable, I can see so many friends coming out of the wood work. Friendship takes work, but the rewards are amazing. You cannot build lasting friendship, though, if you are in fight or flight mode. As long as I was waiting for the time when I needed to move on and cut ties, always felt so alone.

Most of my life I have kept everyone at distance. I used to say that there were really one 4 people in my life that were not disposable; that would be Larry, Ally, Stephen and Chloe. That is not the way God intended for us to live. We were created for community. The God-head three in one lives in community so how could we not need community. I guess I really just was afraid of being hurt and abandoned. I think I also feared that people would realize that I wasn't good enough. Really, I think my coping strategies led me to be more a shell of a person than a real person. I felt so empty, hollow and dead inside. So I wasn't a real person; it was like I was a replica of a person and I was afraid I'd be found out for being a replica. I had been so hurt and damaged that I put me to death inside of myself. I killed my heart.

Fortunately, God has brought me back to life. My heart of stone has been taken out and I have a heart of flesh. It bleeds and hurts and rejoices. That is the thing about numbing your heart so that it doesn't hurt any more; it also takes away your ability to feel good things and live life to the fullest. This process has been a long one for me, but a paradigm shift happened in my when I read the book Waking the Dead by John Eldredge. It spoke life to my heart; it removed the anesthetic so that I could feel again. If any of this resounds in you and you relate, please, please, please, get this book. It will change your life. God resuscitated my heart. One of the greatest quotes in it was ....

"The glory of God is man full alive."

Let that sink into your heart and let the fullness of its truth settle inside of you. If we are half dead and living in an anesthetized state of being, we cannot fully glorify God.

We are to weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice. Weeping is painful, but it is part of life. If we numb and avoid that pain of life, we miss out of the rejoicing as well.

As I began to come back to life, I could feel the pain others felt, but I rejoiced in it. I remember the Sunday morning that I realized that God had really brought me back to life. (I had been alive in God; I was saved, but my heart was still numb and hard.) I was sitting in church and someone was speaking about needing to pray for a particular family in the church. Someone in the churches brother had been beaten to death by gang members. He was just a normal guy doing normal things on a normal day. He yelled at a car for driving too fast down his street and the kids got out and beat him to death for it. I felt like someone had punched me in the stomach; my heart broke and I felt like it was bleeding all over every where. The pain was so intense over someone I didn't even know. I grieved and prayed for that family for several days. It was then I realized that I had really been brought to life and my heart softened and freed. It did not feel good; it was not comfortable, but I rejoiced in it b/c I knew that I was becoming what I was intended by God to be. I was no longer an empty replica. I was a real human. It was kind of like the tin man. Now I feel the pain of others and can weep with them, and I can also feel friendship all around me.

It is amazing. I tell this story hoping that someone else needs to read it; I hope that someone else can find their way out of anesthesia into fully alive.

I also realize sometimes we miss out of friends b/c we misunderstand what is going on. It's like the enemy isolates us by causing us to misinterpret. I have a really great friend now that I value greatly. I am so glad that we are friends and that our daughters are friends. For a couple years I assumed that she thought I was kind of weird and didn't really try to contact me much b/c she didn't want to. Well, come to find out she thought I would think she was boring. Probably we were both waiting for the other to call and make the effort. How silly that we are just now becoming good friends when we have known each other since our girls were in Kinder garden just b/c neither one of us knew what the other was thinking. We both wanted to be friends and weren't sure the other wanted to be friends. How many people do we miss out on knowing b/c we takes shyness or intimidation to mean the other person is not interested in knowing us.

And, yes, the person I am talking about totally knows I am talking about you. Thanks for being my friend. I'm sorry that I let it take so long to be your friend. (Cat!)