"Friends
How many of us have them?
Friends
Ones we can depend on
Friends
How many of have them
Friends
Before we go any further, let's be
Friends"
Now, you may very well think this is a weird thing to be thinking as soon as my eyes open before 6 am, but for me, my brain is either fully asleep or going 100 mph, so this is normal for me! Friendship has been on my mind a lot lately. I have been thinking back over my life and about the people who have come and gone. I have been trying to define what friendship is, and what reasonable expectations I should have.
I was born in 1970, and grew up in a different era. An era where "screen time" wasn't a term. If we watched TV at all, it was one of a half dozen channels, tuned in with a rabbit ear antenna. It was also live TV. If you weren't home in front of the television on a Friday night, you didn't get to see who shot J.R. We also didn't wear bike helmets (the first car I can remember that we had, didn't even have seat belts in the back seat). During the summer, I would be up and outside early in the morning, shortly after my single mom left for work, and would return only to grab food or for a bathroom break, and not be back until dinner. We didn't have cell phones, and while I can't say with certainty, I don't think my mom worried about where I was. Being out with friends all over the neighborhood was normal. We would ride our bikes a couple miles to the convenient store and buy candy and pop. I was truly a latch-key kid. I walked to kindergarten alone, with a key strung on a piece of yarn around my neck. I left for school when the Bozo show was over, and returned back home almost 2 hours before my mom got back from work. Lots of things were different back then.
It was also an age when abuse or bullying were not readily recognized or dealt with. I have written about my back story a few times, and if you are interested in the details, just go back to the first few blog posts I ever wrote. For the sake of today's discussion about friends, I will just summarize by saying that I came from a broken home, where abuse occurred. The impact of this on me at a very young age, by the people closest to me, was that I withdrew. As a young grade school age kid, I struggled to make sense of the world. I was small in stature, and painfully shy. The kind of shy where you sit in a corner, don't speak, and are on the verge of crying or vomiting when the teacher calls your name. I had trouble making friends, which would be a theme throughout my childhood. I did best one-on-one, and had a close friend or two at a time. I was not athletic, and some would probably say clumsy. School came easy for me, without studying, and I was always the first one done with every test. This became a game I played to see how fast I could complete the test, but to some degree a necessity. I was bullied, and those same kids would want to copy the answers off my worksheets and tests. What I learned at home from the abuse was that saying no was not acceptable. You did what was asked of you, and were not given a choice. I did not want to let people copy my work, but was too timid to say no. My solution, was to be super fast, and run the paper up to the teacher's desk as soon as I could, and sheepishly apologize for not being able to "help."
I can't deny that all of these experiences shaped who I am. While I believe that we are born with natural talents and personality traits, our experiences and upbringing impact those things drastically some times. I had trouble trusting people. My experience was that people let you down, hurt you, and abandon you. I found people difficult to understand. I liked things to fit in a neat little (controllable) box, and people were none of those things. They were complicated and impossible to figure out. I felt like everyone else got a manual on navigating social circles, and I never got to read it. People were exhausting. I learned that I could only trust myself, and no one else. So I started building walls to keep others out.
As the years past, I realized that even the few people you let into your inner circle will turn on you to help themselves, share your darkest secrets to increase their social standing or drop you like a hot potato when it is to their advantage. As I began junior high, I became acutely aware of the fact that I was from a poor, black neighborhood. This was a fact that I had not understood up until this point. It was normal to me, and I never dreamed that my white "friends" would shun me for being different. I didn't fit in to the rich, white, preppy club, and those two years were such a struggle, that it would change the course of my life.
I spent a lot of time alone, and when I did talk to anyone, it was the neighbors that I knew. The wall I had built around myself became higher and thicker. I was determined to never let anyone hurt me again. I got angry, and instead of sheepishly saying yes, when I wanted to say no, I became ready to fight with anyone, at a moments notice. As newer families moved into our apartment complex, I met more and more of them, and quickly found that becoming part of their group provided me with fast friends. The trouble was that the apartments had become an area for the gang named "black gangster disciples". I wanted to belong very badly to a group, especially one that hated the clique that had shunned me. The gang was more than willing to include me. I then got involved in drugs and stealing, and fighting.....lots of fighting. All of this was to make and keep "friends." By this time, I used people to achieve what I needed. I was fairly intelligent, and would use that to my advantage to get people to do what I wanted. My issues with saying no continued though, and lead to to do things I didn't want to do still. I was a broken mess, who still found social events to be exhausting. People were a jigsaw puzzle with so many missing pieces that I could never solve it.
Chad can testify to my short fuse back when we met (1989). Throughout the early 90's, I was a ticking time bomb on the verge of killing someone for looking at me funny. I was willing to fight with anyone, anywhere, at any time. In my early 20's, I had Chad, and my two kids, and no real friends to speak of. I was out to prove I didn't need anyone, even Chad knew he was expendable. (love you honey!)
This is where I was when God entered the picture in 1998. Now, just over 20 years since I became a Christian, and am happy to report that He is still working feverishly in my heart to correct all these wrong and sinful attitudes. It began by Him graciously showing me my sinfulness. when it came to wrong thoughts about people. God showed me that I am not independent, and not in control of my life. Slowly, very slooowwwllllyyyyyy, God has torn down the wall I spent years building (the dust is still settling). He has really convicted me that others are "created in His image" (Genesis 1:27), and when I would start going back to old thought patterns (thinking people are exhausting, not worth the effort, to be kept at arm's length, or just obstacles to be stepped over and manipulated to get what I want) the Holy Spirit is quick to let the rooster crow and show me my sin. This has been a long road, and this journey still continues. It is hard to change so many years of history that has shaped the essence of who I have become, actually it is impossible apart from Christ. It has been painful at times, as sanctification is never a pleasant experience. I will be the first to admit that making friends still isn't easy for me. People can be needy and unkind. Most times I still find socializing exhausting. I spend a lot of time in prayer trying to set reasonable expectations of others, wanting to be vulnerable and open with others, and figuring out how to meet the needs of others while setting healthy boundaries.
When God first started this process, I began to realize that my definition of "friendship" was all wrong, all worldly. Friends were the people in my life I expected to meet every demand, always have my back, and love me unconditionally, all while I invested very little of my own energy doing the same. Like a self-fulfilling prophecy, I set myself up to prove my hypothesis that people were untrustworthy, and would stab you in the back the first chance they got. As I studied God's word, He lead me to passages like these:
"A friend loves at all times." (Proverbs 17:17)
A sweet friendship refreshes the soul." (Proverbs 27:9)
"Love one another." (Romans 12:10)
"Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others." (Philippians 2:4)
"He who withholds kindness from a friend forsakes the fear of the Almighty." (Job 6:14)
"Bear one another's burdens." (Galatians 6:2)
"Encourage one another and build one another up." (1 Thessalonians 5:11)
"Serve one another." (1 Peter 4:10)
"Do to others as you would have then do to you." (Luke 6:31)
"...that we may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith." (Romans 1:12)
"Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another.' (Proverbs 27:17)
"And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother." (1 John 4:21)
"Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends." (John 15:13)
"Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity." (Colossians 3:12-14)
Scripture turns my definition on its head! Friends are not put into our lives to do our bidding, or meet our needs. Friends are are a blessing from God. People who choose to love us, because God loves us. God commands us to love and serve others. Yes, friendships take work, and it requires that we die to our own selfish desires. It is an intentional choice to love someone, not because we want something in return, but in response to what Christ has already done.
Friends are a gift that are placed in our lives to help encourage our faith, to correct and rebuke us, and to carry our burdens, as we carry theirs. A friend is not just a person who agrees with you, or is easy to talk to. Each brother and sister in Christ, each of our neighbors, every person who tries talking to us n line at the grocery store, are all opportunities to show Christ's love to others. We can create true friendships, built upon a firm foundation with God and His Word as it's base. We are only able to love and forgive others, because we have been loved and forgiven by God. We recognize God's image in the face of others, even those who are different than we are. Yes, even those who are "weird" or difficult or hard to love.
God is graciously continuing His work in me. I have a long way to go in this area. I still tend to be exhausted (mentally and physically) after social events. My self-righteousness still rears its ugly head when I walk away from interactions wondering why someone didn't ask about me. The Lord is quickly making the theme of 2019 "it isn't about me." Another painful, but necessary sanctifying lesson to be learned. I pray that God would show each of you your sinfulness, and your desperate need of a Savior. I pray He opens your eyes to the people around you, that maybe you tend to overlook. Those who were all created in His image, and could use a true friend. The kind that sticks closer than a brother (Proverbs 18:24), not because you want something from them, but because you love God so much that His love bubbles up and pours over onto others. May He gently remind us all that this life is not about us, but it is about Him.
Until Next Time~
Shari
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