Though other random thoughts get me sidetracked easily, taking me down quick paths with other meaningful adventures & morals, I've been chomping on this one for a while. I guess you could say because people come & go, & I am in a new season of my life with fresh beginnings, full of excitement & possibilities. & the season that brought me into this one was the most unpleasant season of my life thus far, ending with my God & a match, in which he set everything inside my heart ablaze, refining me through the ashes & the greys. Nothing stood past his flames. Nothing left but me & my God with the match.
Through it all, I have been reeled back into reality, where the God with the match is all I need. I'm a wanderer, heavily prone to slowly fade with shiny new things that were meant as blessings from my maker, turning them into treasures to which I keep a tight grip. The usual culprit is relationships, as I call claims to friends as mine & tell God he can step in line (through my actions, not intentionally), & next thing you know they have the center of my attention & the majority of my time, that time that used to be his. Things that used to be black & white fade to greys, because they think it's okay so it must all be okay. I guess everyone does it. Good news, in the midst of my mid-air jump off the bridge, God reached out his arms, breaking my fall. He swooped me up, said 'huh-uh', & steadied my staggering feet. He reminded me whose I was & pulled me back from situations to see the bigger picture.
Atlas in my hands.
Here is something valuable to consider. How many times does God ask people questions in the Bible? Have you ever really thought about the fact that our God is all-present & all-knowing, so the questions he asks are things he already knows the answers to? So why in the world does he even ask? Relationship. Relation to where we should be. To get us to stop running, throwing sheets over all the mirrors, & to examine ourselves for once. We go & go & go & follow our own navigation systems, calling it God's will & never actually looking at the atlas.
So who are you? Or, better yet, where are you in relation to the person you want to become? Are you everything that the little kiddo you dreamed about becoming when you got older? What's your favorite thing about yourself? Take out your little girl self & tell me what's in there.
Build me up, buttercup.
You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.
(JIM ROHN)
Me & this quote. We cannot part ways. Not the first time I've heard it, but everything takes on new meaning when you are in different seasons of your life. Bible verses you have heard a thousand times, in one ear out the other, suddenly sticking with dignity, covered in grace. Something clicks, & magically you realize this whole time all you had to do was turn the puzzle piece a hair & voilà! It fits. As did this simple phrase in my life.
A few months ago, I was thinking describe average.
Because I was not sure if I should take this as a compliment or not. What part of their average did I get? Because those
people I had once dared to allow the steering wheel in my life seem to be way
more lost in the world than I was before I had begun hanging around them. Now I
am not so sure. I do not know what they are even capable of giving me, but I am
also just as unsure that I want any part of them.
But pages turn & faces change.
Maybe they saw the lost my eyes beheld. Maybe they noticed my hesitant pace;
three steps forward & one step back. Hesitation has a way of spreading like
the common cold. & spread it did, leaving me with quiet evenings catching
up on sleep.
So with a fresh start & a second chance to make right ties with right people, whom do I grow fond with? Who is going to be truthful with a whole lot of love, trustworthy in the midst of hurt & frustration? Who will be the five people whom I get a part of to relish as my own? What parts of people I love have I not taken note of, a model worth following?
{GRAMMIE JOAN.}
Then there is my other grandmother, very much alive. She is a loud woman & loves to feed people. & by 'loves to feed people', I mean that including strangers on the streets. For example, the man who brought my grandfather's oxygen tanks a few weeks ago, & my grandmother dragging him inside to have a slice of pizza & sweet tea. I cherish her hospitality, her holidays with more strangers than familiar faces.
{SARAH.}
A new friend & Christ pursuer, I have found her friendship inspiring & refreshing. Her boldness is driven by compassion, & her near painful truth is such a bundle of love. She is completely honest with me, even if it's not what my little ears want to hear, but there is a difference between her words & the words of previous 'honest' friends. Behind every word she releases over me is the deepest, sister-love a girl could ask for.
{THE DA(Y)NAS.}
Also newer friends, Dayna & Dana are so different from other girls I've known. They are two of the most nonjudgmental girls I have ever met, which is also why they have so many friends from so many different places. Everywhere they go, they don't leave strangers. & I have yet to hear either of them say anything terrible about anybody. So full of love & ease.
{NICOLE.}
Nicole, my sweet sister friend from Virginia, whom I have absolutely no idea how I met, but we both deemed it a God thing. She is the prime example of 'love does'. I am positive the Bob Goff actually had to get the book idea from following her around, or as I've been doing since day one, keeping up with her life through social networking. Within the past months (literally), Nicole has gone over seas for missions, started an organization, gone across the United States for Invisible Children & Love Does conferences, & now, this past week, she has moved across the United States to intern with Invisible Children. She feels a fire in her heart, & she acts.
Messy love & unfashionable time.
If you haven't caught by this point, relationships are very, very important to me. & I am not always a great friend- ask most of the people I hold the closest to me. My love can be messy, which is something I am more recently beginning to recognize. But I am practicing, & by practicing I am taking note of all the loved ones surrounding me & the ways that their personalities bless me most. & when I start to search for reasons to be grateful for people God's given, I begin to realize that I am blessed. So blessed. So Dayna, Dana, Sarah, Grammie Marge, Grammie Joan, & Nicole, thank you. To all my other many girlfriends God has blessed me with (there are SO many of you, & you know who you are), I love you all. To all the men who have a special place in my heart & read this by force when I fill with self doubt, I love you all. & if y'all ever doubt that you are special & you are worth loving, please tell me. I can give you plenty of reasons I love you. (& I do.)
This week, consider Jesus' relationships with the twelve disciples, whom God entrusted to him. Meditate on it all. Compare his relationship with his twelve to other followers. Observe how he cared for the relationships.
Make a list of the five people who are consuming the most of your time. How are you growing from the relationships you have with them? How can you grow? Are they causing growth or causing you to grow stagnant?
Who do you feel God is placing in your path to walk through this season with? Pray, asking God to give you discernment within all your relationships. Ask him for more faith, to strengthen you to let go of toxic relationships & build on the blessings.
So with a fresh start & a second chance to make right ties with right people, whom do I grow fond with? Who is going to be truthful with a whole lot of love, trustworthy in the midst of hurt & frustration? Who will be the five people whom I get a part of to relish as my own? What parts of people I love have I not taken note of, a model worth following?
These are a few of my favorite things.
So I was thinking of my favorite things about the people whom I adore. I thought, what if I could choose the remnants of people that stay with me? I no sooner thought this before the truth sat naked before me. I can choose. I can choose who I become. Even if this average of five people thing is true, I still have a choice on who I become, because there is still a choice on who I hang out with & who I cherish.
{GRAMMIE JOAN.}
My grandmother was thee most beautiful woman I have ever seen. Seriously, she deserved to be on the cover of every magazine. & her smile. oh, her smile. She was lovely. She was bold & fearless, singing & dancing with her granddaughter 'there she was just a walkin' down the street', riding bikes down the Sam's club isles with her grandsons next to the signs that read 'do not ride'.
I have no recollection of her voice, as that's what I seem to remember going first. Lou Georgics disease is an illness in which the muscles slowly deteriorate, ending in death. I still remember mom coming to pick my siblings & I up from school, taking us to my gram & papa's house where my father & her had been sorting through the piles of odds & ends. There on the bottom shelf of the bookcase sat a large cardboard box, with stacks of notepads covered in her words. The sickness stole her ability to speak, breathe without the oxygen tank that trailed behind, chew & swallow foods, & walk, eventually leaving her paralyzed in the hospital bed in her living room. But the loss of her voice didn't kill her ability to find words. Maybe that's why I am so passionate about writing.
{GRAMMIE MARGE.}
Then there is my other grandmother, very much alive. She is a loud woman & loves to feed people. & by 'loves to feed people', I mean that including strangers on the streets. For example, the man who brought my grandfather's oxygen tanks a few weeks ago, & my grandmother dragging him inside to have a slice of pizza & sweet tea. I cherish her hospitality, her holidays with more strangers than familiar faces.
{SARAH.}
A new friend & Christ pursuer, I have found her friendship inspiring & refreshing. Her boldness is driven by compassion, & her near painful truth is such a bundle of love. She is completely honest with me, even if it's not what my little ears want to hear, but there is a difference between her words & the words of previous 'honest' friends. Behind every word she releases over me is the deepest, sister-love a girl could ask for.
{THE DA(Y)NAS.}
Also newer friends, Dayna & Dana are so different from other girls I've known. They are two of the most nonjudgmental girls I have ever met, which is also why they have so many friends from so many different places. Everywhere they go, they don't leave strangers. & I have yet to hear either of them say anything terrible about anybody. So full of love & ease.
{NICOLE.}
Nicole, my sweet sister friend from Virginia, whom I have absolutely no idea how I met, but we both deemed it a God thing. She is the prime example of 'love does'. I am positive the Bob Goff actually had to get the book idea from following her around, or as I've been doing since day one, keeping up with her life through social networking. Within the past months (literally), Nicole has gone over seas for missions, started an organization, gone across the United States for Invisible Children & Love Does conferences, & now, this past week, she has moved across the United States to intern with Invisible Children. She feels a fire in her heart, & she acts.
Messy love & unfashionable time.
If you haven't caught by this point, relationships are very, very important to me. & I am not always a great friend- ask most of the people I hold the closest to me. My love can be messy, which is something I am more recently beginning to recognize. But I am practicing, & by practicing I am taking note of all the loved ones surrounding me & the ways that their personalities bless me most. & when I start to search for reasons to be grateful for people God's given, I begin to realize that I am blessed. So blessed. So Dayna, Dana, Sarah, Grammie Marge, Grammie Joan, & Nicole, thank you. To all my other many girlfriends God has blessed me with (there are SO many of you, & you know who you are), I love you all. To all the men who have a special place in my heart & read this by force when I fill with self doubt, I love you all. & if y'all ever doubt that you are special & you are worth loving, please tell me. I can give you plenty of reasons I love you. (& I do.)
{here's what to walk away with.}
This week, consider Jesus' relationships with the twelve disciples, whom God entrusted to him. Meditate on it all. Compare his relationship with his twelve to other followers. Observe how he cared for the relationships.
Make a list of the five people who are consuming the most of your time. How are you growing from the relationships you have with them? How can you grow? Are they causing growth or causing you to grow stagnant?
Who do you feel God is placing in your path to walk through this season with? Pray, asking God to give you discernment within all your relationships. Ask him for more faith, to strengthen you to let go of toxic relationships & build on the blessings.
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