Skip to main content

Friends and Frustrations

We all have them, those friends that think your sole purpose of life is to jump however high they demand on the spot. I recently had been building up a heavy dose of resentment toward one of my friends and this resentment came to a climax at one point last week. I was venting to my mother and little sister about this friend and they, in a godly way, were trying to convict me of my sin but I was so annoyed that I didn't bother to listen. It wasn't till later when I was reading the Bible that God hit me hard in the heart. I was reading 1 Corinthians 13 which really isn't the smart thing to do when you want to be angry. Here's how I read it.
"Becca is patient with ____
Becca must be kind to ____"
And so on. The parts that were particularly convicting had to do with not being rude, insisting on my own way, irritable (I was pretty irritable) or resentful.
It was a good lesson for me. I hope those of you who are going through things with your friends will be encouraged to know with God all things are possible, even dealing with those frustrating friends. This is a command to love others, not a request. And if God commands it we must obey. Remember that you are responsible for yourself before God, not your friends.

"Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things." 1 Cor. 13:7 

Blessings,
RD

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Body Image (1)

Contentedly situated in lawn chairs with our toes in the sand and the baby playing on a blanket at our feet, my friend and I watch her girls digging holes or running between the beach and the lake. Periodically, the girls run up to us to display the shells and rocks they've found. At one point, as the girls surround us, one of us adults comments on the baby being chubby (which she is, as a baby should be) after which one of the girls looks at me and says, "you're kind of chubby." She wasn't trying to be rude or smart, she was just being bluntly observant as children are. As I looked at I her and considered an answer, I thought of the baggage of body image that women have carried for generations, and I thought, I don't want her to carry this baggage too. I want better for her.   I replied, "you know, being a little chubby is actually a good thing. Our bodies function better and it helps keep us warm." This deep lesson was probably lost on her as she s...
Post a Comment
Read more

What Is Your Purpose?

 A couple weeks ago, a young woman asked me, "what is your purpose?" it kind of threw me off. Ok, it really threw me off. It seemed a bit touché to say "to glorify God and enjoy Him forever" when she was looking for specifics. And I get why she's asking. My life does seem pretty random. Thirty-two years old, working on my BA, teaching music part time, working at a coffee shop part time, and living at least an hour from my closest family member. On paper it looks...well...it looks random. I get it. Kind of hard to pull a purpose out of the randomness.  I was talking to the Lord about it because sometimes, even for myself, the person living this life, it's hard to find a specific purpose in the randomness. Sometimes I wonder,  when I get to Heaven if I'm  going to have anything to offer God, if while other people show up with their kids, I'm going to hold out empty hands and say "it's just me." I mean, if He wants soldiers to defeat spiri...
Post a Comment
Read more

Back in Time

I pulled into the laneway of a home that I'm sure would have looked quaint if I could have seen it through all the trees. The sign by the road read "hanging baskets and railroad ties" and lo and behold that was just what I was looking for (I mean the railroad ties, not the hanging baskets).  I parked close to the grass incase a buggy had to get by and slipped out of the red mini van. I didn't see anyone. That, however, does not mean that someone did not see me. I strolled over to look at the flowers to wait for someone to come out and see what the crazy girl with the pony-tail was doing on their property. A large dog, missing his right eye, managed to find me first and it was while I was petting this friendly, half blind, beast that the house seemed to spit out a young lady. She was wearing a long dress, an apron, and a head covering. She walked toward me with a smile and I recognized her from a singing I had gone to at the neighbors place a few months earlier. I ...
2 comments
Read more