Friend Or Fight?

“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.” (1 John 4:7 NIV)

A funny thing happens when you have God in your life; you begin to think from a different view point to the one you had before. It has started happening to me and I am both shocked and happy about it, yet still confused as to exactly how it has happened. Firstly, as I haven’t written on here for two days, I would like to assure you I haven’t been on a mad partying session. I have been busy with close friends, who have kindly helped me paint my kitchen and also one of these friends stayed over with me last night. These experiences, though seemingly small to others, are a massive leap for me. I have always worked hard and partied harder, meaning painting days and takeaway nights were all but non existent. Don't get me wrong, I had people staying over my house a lot, but that was after a long partying session and not just for the joy of each others company. I am loving this new lifestyle and with it more changes have come.

If you have read my blog in the past, you may remember a particular entry where I had been let down on my birthday meal by one of my closest friends. This caused the spirit of rejection to well up inside of me like a beast of hell, and I was both furious and hurt about this event and her. I ranted and raved to my family, I beat myself up over it and I aired my views on here to release the pain I was feeling. It has still haunted me since and our text messages have been very rare and very short if sent at all. Today I went on a spa day with this girl and I had been dreading it all week.

The spa day had been booked as a joint birthday present for us prior to our falling out and although I did not want to go after the meal event (rejection), I had listened to the advice of my family and went along with the intention to talk to her about my feelings. As the days got closer I got more and more nervous and have been troubled not only about what I wanted to say about the rejection, but for the many times previous that I felt I had been treated unfairly. I personally do not like to hurt people, but equally I don't want to be walked over ever again and this was essential to me that I made my point clear and effective. So, last night when one of my best mates stayed over, I explained my predicament. In my view so far, I have learnt that our God is a God of love. That we must express love to one another and to remember that the enemy likes to separate people. But, as much as I knew this, I battled  with that view as I also felt that it was important that I got my feelings clear as I had so much pent up rage and frustration. I just didn’t know the best way forward. One thing that so many people say about me is that I can be too nice when sometimes the person I am directing it to doesn’t deserve it, but also that I am not able to lie or fake how I feel in front of people. Both are true, although they may seem contradictory. I do see good in all people, yes ALL people, but when I honestly do not like someone, I can't disguise it, I can't be fake. Last night, I could not see a way of being here today and not saying how I felt without compromising myself or my beliefs.

Today I am pleased to say, has gone wonderfully. I am surprised to say the least, but I am fully aware of what happened to my character today. It grew beyond measure to learn to look beyond my pain and to experience someone else’s. I had God eyes for the day and I now understand the difference between thinking how He thinks and thinking how the flesh thinks. Today, when I picked my friend up, I chose not to say anything about the meal incident and neither did she. However my tone was frosty and I was much more direct when she talked about the issues she is having with her relationship (a married man with kids). I noticed the hostility in my voice and chose then to tell her that I had been furious with her and that beyond that I was deeply hurt by her actions. I told her I had calmed down and could see that she was living in the dark. That she was partying too much and that she was making bad choices and this was affecting her life. She knew this to be the same but she didn’t say anything about the meal. I chose to leave it. I had said what I needed to and I had done it in a much more diplomatic way than I had imagined. I could have carried on all day, but I saw the pain and darkness that was engulfing her too and chose to relate the incident to that darkness, rather than her character.

I am not making excuses for her, neither am I condoning her behaviour towards me that night of rejection and past events. But I do recognise darkness when I see it and feeding that will only pull me and her farther from the light and from love. My Lord was with me today, my heart was able to open with love to accept one of His children, faults and all. I put aside my feelings and my fleshy thoughts and I looked through eyes of truth and love. I can sense darkness so acutely, it literally licks my skin. Maybe years of living in it myself have meant I am susceptible to it's presence forever more. I thought I needed to have a sit down chat, a long drawn out assessment of our friendship and what that means. But, that is not how it went. I learnt today to put aside my pride and my feelings of hate, anger and self pity and be the friend that I needed to be. I had it all wrong, you can't fight darkness with darkness, you will only create more. I chose today to be true to who I am and say a small snippet of my initial feelings, but I immediately followed this with a reason for her behaviour. Nothing more of the matter was said.

So, God surprises me every day with the changes he is making to me. I have not come home feeling like I let her get away as I would usually do if I had ignored the opportunity to voice my frustration. No, instead I feel like I am the luckiest girl in the world. I learnt tongue control, I learnt the implications of my words on an already darkened soul. Many people, me included, can sometimes feel the need to put right any wrongs by being almost aggressive to get your point across. We are told that this is standing up for ourselves, we are being brave for correcting the people who hurt us. Well, that’s all fine unless of course you are more interested in living happily, anger and stress free. Ok, so that’s a big claim, but it really made sense to me today. I achieve nothing but a short satisfactory feeling if I unload my fury and poison into someone else’s soul. They then carry this feeling and it gets transferred to someone else or onto themselves. I then welcome in the spirit of guilt for knowing I have said bad words to someone I care about. You see, there are no positives in this scenario.

Instead today, I let the Lord control my heart and He did it in a way that I had never imagined. I opened my mouth and out came love and compassion. I saw her through His eyes and loved her again. It is a bizarre feeling but it is one I know is right and is another step on my pathway to greater glory. I am relearning old behaviour patterns, my fleshy self is undergoing changes that will lead me on and on into the realms of my Lord and I am happier again for finding the truth amidst all the demons. If I can do it, I know you can too. Use His eyes, Use His heart and walk amongst the angels as I did today.

Love Always.x