God's gift of friendship

I am very excited about today's post. Friendship has always been something that has been important to me. It has its ups and downs. It also has brought me many lessons. When you find true friendships that last, you find support, comfort, and companionship. I'm thankful to God who ultimately knows our needs and knows how to make us better people and He does that through friendships.

Proverbs 18:2

One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

Let me start this whole discussion by saying that when it comes to friends, I have always gotten along much better with guys. I grew up with two brothers and although I was the oldest, I enjoyed playing with legos, and cars and transformers. (I made my brothers play barbies with me, I'm sorry Jered and Joel). I liked sports, and getting dirty and having a fort and running around in the woods. When I was younger from about 6 years old to 12 my family went to a large church and I actually had a lot of girl friends, and when your younger its easier to have girls friends. As soon as my preteen, teen years happened however, stuff changed for me. First off, my family moved out of state. We started going to a much smaller church and a new school. I was 12. At that point you are either cool or your not. I fell into the "not" category and middle school was very difficult. Making friends with other girls was extremely difficult because I was definitely not cool (in middle school terms). I didn't dress like everyone else, I didn't really act like other girls, and I was not really interested in the same kinds of things everyone else was. Dresses and makeup and boys etc. I just wasn't quite there yet. I also kind of just say stuff. Most people who know me, know that first off I'm a weirdo and second I just say stuff without thinking. At that point in time, like every teenager, I wasn't really comfortable with who I was yet. So as time went on, I did make friends, but I did find that I was much more comfortable with guys. They didn't get upset when I said stupid stuff, or acted weird, and I like sports so it was at times easier to talk to them. I always wanted to have friends that were girls, I had a desire to be girly, and feminine, I just didn't know how to relate in that way.

Fast forward to the college years. So college brought different challenges, I made fast friends there. Bible college is a great place to make friends, however there was, believe it or not a lot of gossip, a lot of backstabbing and a lot of misunderstanding. That's what happens when you live in close quarters with a bunch of 18-22 year old girls, whether christian or not. I am a very black and white person. You are either my friend or not, either you agree with me or you don't, either you believe like me or you don't. Unfortunately, that was a very narrow minded way of thinking and I lost friends over the years for not being more open-minded. Again, my mouth also got me in trouble. I also became so desperate to be accepted that I often, allowed others to walk on me, or to tell me how I should think. I came to believe that friendship was based on these things. I was completely wrong. I started thinking "Why can't I just be myself? Why can't I find a friend I can trust?" I found that I was trying to hard to please my friends, make them happy, and that brought me to a place where I really wasn't being myself and I wasn't happy with myself. I didn't feel accepted it constantly brought me back to junior high and feeling left out and not liked. I learned so much from the time I was a young 13 year old to when I got married at 22.

Ministry brought a different perspective. Friendship was a delicate balance.  It became difficult to have close friends. It was like having two lives, one where I was ministering and speaking into people's lives and the other where I was myself. It got lonely. So many roles to fill and it was tough. By this time, college was over and all of the great friends I did make while I was there had gone on to marry and start ministries of their own. They were not around anymore. Friendship is easier when everyone is around and is close and you don't have to make plans.

It wasn't until Bill and I were alone in a strange city, doing a ministry we had never done before, that God brought me a friend. We were both new moms, both had intense husbands, and went to the same church. We started hanging out more because we were both in ministry and they were helping us to get adjusted to living in Albany. Little did I know that I had found a friend that would become a comfort and blessing. 

The best thing about what God did by bringing my friend into my life was that He taught me that I could be myself, be opinionated, and disagree with someone, and still have a close friendship. Bill and his best friend are the most opposite people you can imagine, but they have stuck with it for 20 years. I always admired that and desired that. Little did I know that God would bring a similar person into my life. Although we are not opposites, we are different and learning to see the differences as blessings has been amazing. She encourages me in ministry and the things I want to do, and gives advice when I ask. We are able to pray for one another and get our children together. Most of all, we just have a good time. We relate and we like to read and watch movies and hang out, all the things girl friends should do. 

Proverbs 27:17

 As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.

I am encouraged, because I know that God brings people into our lives to make us better and to enrich our lives. When I was going through it, God was there, and He sent someone to come along side and be my friend. He knows our needs even before we ask. Don't be afraid to make friends and to put your heart out there, you never know when God will bring exactly who you need.

Family Heritage: Part 2

So the last time I blogged was almost a month ago. I shared my heart about my upbringing and how it shaped my life and my faith. As promised I am going to talk about my husband a little and his background and the amazing power of God's grace in his life. 

At the end of my last post, I talked about how no matter what my upbringing was, I still needed Jesus just like everyone else. I still needed grace and I was still a very needy person, even if I grew up in a happy, healthy, christian environment. Bill's story is much different.

My son's often asked me, why does dad have two dads? It is difficult to tell a 6 and 4 year old that Bill's mother and father were divorced when he was very young. Cathy (Bill's mom) was a very devout Irish Catholic and so she went to the priest about her marriage and all that had happened. The priest informed her that Bill would be considered illegitimate because of the divorce even though there was infidelity involved. She was furious and at that point decided to leave the church. Now understand for those of the Catholic faith, leaving the church is considered leaving God. So Cathy was a single mom whose faith had been severely shaken. It was in the midst of all of this that Cathy became friends with Wayne Cleveland and the eventually began dating, they also became involved in a Bible Study of a man who was planting a church in their town. Through all of this both of them became saved. As time went on the Church grew and Cathy and Wayne were married. Bill was still a very little boy during this time. 

Now in a sense, Bill grew up in the church as well. His parents were pillars in their church, they were there every time the doors were open, at prayer meetings, service, Sunday school, and Bill was with them. However, Bill was wounded. The divorce had caused much pain in him as a young boy. He didn't understand why his parents did not love each other anymore and he buried his pain so that he would be tough. So that no one would be able to hurt him like that again. Through his time growing up he did experience God in different ways, however he held on to his anger and his hurt. Into his teens he became very introverted and hopeless. The pain of his life was caving in on him, and he became suicidal. 

I love his conversion experience and the way he describes it. He was in church one night and as always he was sitting in the closest seat to the door. He describes the experience so vividly. He heard the Lord speak to him and basically say tonight is your night you either choose me or go your own way which is the way of weeping and gnashing of teeth. That night God gave Bill an ultimatum and that night He took step towards God, he walked up the center isle of his little country church and God literally knocked him out. When he got up, he wasn't the same person. The pain of his circumstances, the hate he had, the sin he had lived  was washed away.

I love Bill's testimony, not because of the pain he faced or the fact that he has "a cool testimony" because it honestly isn't cool. I love it because I see how God had a plan all along. From the moment that Cathy was told by the priest that her son would be a bastard, God had a plan. All of these difficult painful circumstances pointed Cathy toward God. It brought her to a place of salvation. She had to learn to depend on God and pray. She brought Bill to church and planted seeds of grace in his life. So he had a Godly heritage, different perhaps then mine, but amazing. The reality is that God wants all of us, through our circumstances and our lives and our families God has a plan. So as you look at your lives, your family heritage, recognize that God's hand is in all of it. You will see that no matter how difficult our lives are or how much pain we face, God is there.