Perfume and incense bring joy to the heart,and the pleasantness of one's friend springs from his earnest counsel. (Proverbs 27:9 NIV84)
I woke up this morning thinking about the game concentration. I played it at sleepovers with my friends. Once it was nighttime, you would close your eyes. Then your friend would tap your shoulders and say, "Concentrate! Concentrate! People dying. Children crying. Concentrate!" I know, what a positive and uplifting game. Then their would be a choice of different things you could do. "There's a knife in you back! Stab it! Feel the blood trickling down." Now, if you have your eyes closed and depending how into the game your friend was, it felt like you were stabbed and something was running down your back. In truth, it was your friend punching you in the back and tickling their fingers down your back and depending how into it they were, you could walk away with a bruise. It felt like you were stabbed and mortal and mortally bleeding. In reality, you were fine.
Feelings are not our reality. They are feelings.
This past weekend, God exposed some massive hurts in my heart. Two very close friends that knew my heart and then hurt me. One was in middle school. She was my very best friend and then one day she told me she didn't want to be friends. We were going to high school and she wanted new friends. The second was my best friend as an adult. Then one day, he stopped talking to me. I even felt weird stares and heard giggles as I passed by our other friends. I felt they knew my deepest and darkest secrets that I only told to him. Because of theses deep hurts, I insulated my heart. Protected it. No friend could go that deep again. I had been mortally wounded and would not allow that to happen again. Yet, I desired and prayed for a deep relationship.
I recently was blessed with a friend who was what I prayed for. She is not only my accountability, but she is my sister. Without knowing it, God removed my insulation and protection. This weekend I was encountered old feelings and tapes. Will she hurt me like they did? I subconsciously started to pushed her away. I could not have that happen again. In a very short period of time and through prayer, God showed me what was happening. That I was pasting old feelings onto my new, healthy friendship. I am not the same person and she was not the two friends that hurt me. It's interesting to me how we can get stuck in old tapes very easily. How we can paste old hurts onto new people. How we can get stuck very quickly in our old selves.
Ephesians talks about that we need to "...put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness." (Ephesians 4:22-24 NIV84)
I talked with my dear sister and told her what God had revealed to me. I told her about how I was hurt. I bore my heart to her and my gratitude that God had brought her in my life. I know God blessed me with her friendship.
Trust is hard. My heart and trust can easily be broken again. But the rewards of a lasting friendship is totally worth the possibility of being hurt again.
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