Thoughts

Recently someone I grew up with got back in touch with me via MySpace. As wonderful as it is to get back in touch with people from my past, it also brings up several memories, most I'd like to not ever remember. So much from my past growing up in Louisiana is so painful for me...but it got me to start thinking as well

So many of the people I grew up with that were my "friends" never knew the real me. It got me thinking about the friends I have now. Do I allow them to opportunity to really know me? Or do I continue to repress everything, keep a wall up to make everyone believe everything is OK?

I remember one instance in high school going out one night with my supposed "friends." We all went to the movies. I didn't get to go often and wasn't invited often. Mainly because I had to work a lot of the time, and being raised in a single parent home with 3 kids, there really wasn't much money for things like that. Most of the times these people didn't even think to invite me because they assumed i wouldn't be able to come, but this one time really sticks out.

We went to the movies. Afterwards, we were all going to go to someone's house to hang out. I had ridden with someone, because I didn't have a license yet. I went to the restroom after the movie, came out to find that they'd left me there. They'd forgotten I was with them. They forgot me there, and didn't even notice for over an hour that I wasn't with them. I was devastated.

How many times are we so involved in our own personal dramas, our own personal thoughts that we've forgotten those around us. God has called us to love one another, unconditionally, without reasons, without expecting something in return...just the way that He loves us.

How often do we ever truly care to ask someone how they really are? Many of those "friends" I had never even noticed I had moved from Louisiana until years later. Many of them, if not all, never knew how sad and lonely I was even when they were all around me. Many to this day don't know I contemplated suicide in high school several times...We always say "How ya doing?," but do we really mean it? Do we really care? Are we willing to take the time to see past the facade and the "Fine" Do we honestly love each other enough to care?

I've grown up now and that was more than 12 years ago. I still ahve to check myself and be introspective to this day to see if when I'm listening to my friends...am I really listening? Am I looking past the surface to who they really are?

Some verses came to mind when I look back and I look at the present. I'm so blessed that God has brought me so far from where and who I was. God has truly blessed my life and put people in my life to encourage and lift me up, and people I can do the same for! God has also given me freedom from the bitterness I once had toward those in my past.

My favorite verse is :
Zephaniah 3:17"The Lord your God is with you, He is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you. He will quiet you with his love; He will rejoice over you with singing."

God rejoices over each one of us every day! He actually takes delight in us! On the days I feel the most down, on the days when I feel alone, I simply look at that verse and am amazed at how much God loves me...insignificant me! The fact that even at my worst he takes delight in me, that he would quiet my fears, my longings, my thoughts, my lonelieness, my many many faults, and will quiet those with his great & mighty love...never ceases to amaze me beyond measure!

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perserveres. Love never fails. but where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perection comes the imperfect disappears." 1 Corinthians 13:4-10

I know this is most often heard at weddings. But how awesome to be reminded of how we should love each other. Not becasue we want something from them, but simply because we love them. Love never fails...NEVER!
Everything stops for love. We are all imperfect, and yet when perfection (God) is there all of our imperfections disappear. How awesome to know that!!! How awesome it is to know that in God's prescence all of my imperfections disappear!