I AM Redeemed

I want to talk a little on friendship today.  I have experienced some really strange things and some really awesome things in friendships over my life.  It is one of the many areas where God has gifted me so as a result my friendships are many times attacked by the evil work of the enemy.  I know there have been times I was at fault and some I was not at fault. Friendships are human and have hurts and pains in them.  Here is the truth-----ugh I hate even saying it but---- friendship had become an idol in my life.  I placed value on what friends thought of me over what He thinks of me.  I listened to people’s commentary of where I am and what has happened over what He says I am and what happened.  And believe me they are two completely different things.    I had a revelation! God is so good.

Anger- You know I sometimes am able to get my thoughts out of my head by writing and right now I am writing because I am so angry.  I don’t know it this will ever see the public but I have to get it all out of my head.  Why am I angry I ask myself?  Because of evil.  I am so upset that the enemy kills, steals, and destroys.  I blame him and I know he is at fault.  Have I participated~ yes.  Have other participated~ yes.  But ultimately, we all have to remember who is to blame and it isn’t each other~ it is him.  Anger is gone like a heavy weight that was lifted.

Heartbreak - My heart breaks at the loss over really good meaningful friendships.  I see the devour of a people group and it is awful. One thing I know is a God who will not stand for idolatry and pride or anything that rises up against Him.   He partners with the weak and humble and those who are on their faces.  He wants to see His kingdom come and His will be done on earth as it is in heaven.  And if you are rising up structures that oppose him and his kingdom it will be destroyed.  I recently destroyed a structure the Holy Spirit showed me I had built.  I do not understand all of it but it is gone now and I am so thankful he showed it to me. 

Discipline - I keep telling myself, like I literally call myself into my own principal’s office and tell myself to “get it together” and “stop making this thing such a big thing” but, I cannot move past it.  I am just stuck here examining and reexamining and conversations and moments and asking for clarity and wisdom.  I’ve spoken with others and they say things like God opens and closes doors and friends are for a season and its okay move forward but nothing feels good about that either.  My instinct to fight for people & things and I have to keep that tame like a volcano fixing to erupt because I want to slap the poison being drank out of their hands and scream in their faces to flea back to His kingdom and his righteousness.  But it is not my job. I am just going to seek Him.

Deception - Then the question I ask my Daddy often, what if I am wrong.  What if I have been fooled and led astray?  What if I am the “victim” of the enemy’s tactics?  Absolutely nothing brings peace but being in His presence and solitude from all the voices and opinions.  And so, I wake all stirred up yet again and I seek Him first about how my day will go.  I see so many opportunities to love and love well.  I hear of those in need and I remind myself that this life is His and not mine.  That the betrayal and devour is to Him and not to me.  And my heart just breaks over it all.  I weep more than you can imagine at how His name, His character, and His heart is being trampled on and torn into a jillion pieces daily.  He lived and He bled and He loved and He walked and He died for every single one of us.  Yet we still crucify Him daily instead of crucifying ourselves.  No more.    

Friendly fire- The enemy loves to have us fighting with each other and hurting each other so that we do not engage in the real war after us.  So that we isolate and step away from the pack of believers and then become prey to the vicious lion waiting to eat us.  For a while I was in this place of solitude.  I found the love of a Father more than any other time.  I truly was never alone and he drew me close. I almost did not want to leave that safe place, and I do not have to. 

No one was created to walk alone.

~Friendships~

Some are deep and some are weak.

Some withstand the storm and some do not.

Some are healthy and some are deadly.

Some are meant to grow you and some are meant to grow them.

Some provide healing and some provide disease.

Some are for life and some are for a season.

Some have your back and some talk behind your back.

Some love well and some are learning love while there.

Some are real and some are fake.

Some need you and some you need them.

Some encourage and uplift and some tear down and destroy.

Some run into fires with you and some run away when there is fire.

Some are fear based and some are perfect love based.

Some hurt and some heal.

Some are fun and some steal.

I recently confessed to a small group of close friends that the enemy has been sending thoughts my way of suicide.  Out of nowhere I will think that thought and of course immediately capture the thought and wonder what in the world? Where did that come from?  Truth is that was a battle of mine back in high school.  I wrote really eloquent poems about it that I hid under my mattress.  Then again in my late 20’s and early 30’s the enemy came in again with depression and anxiety and those thoughts were there again.  I read an article or two or three recently about a pastor who committed suicide after taking the entire summer off to try and get his mind healthy again.  I watched his sermon when he returned just a few weeks ago and saw that pain in his eyes and in his wife’s eyes, who stood by his side though it all.  I hate the enemy so much.  I was talking to someone about it and they made the comment that he was a coward.  Man, that just went all over me because I have been there in the midst of depression and coward is not the word.  The enemy can send any thought he wants your way.  You have a choice whether you entertain it and how is manifests in your body depends greatly on how you think about the thought. 

I’ve recently been struggling with feeling like I cannot breathe and struggling with tight spaces, all of which are brand new thought and not true.  I sometimes wake up with terrible dreams and have to rebuke the enemy right there.  I will rabbit trail down the thought train sometimes about what am I going to do if …….. and it is a terrible place to be.  I didn’t ask to have the dream.  I didn’t ask to have the thought, but yet here they are and it is a real manifestation in my body when I wake in panic and terror.  All of this to say the enemy could just as easily be sending me thoughts of suicide.  One thing I read that this pastors wife said was “I am so sorry you were so scared, I am so sorry you felt so alone, I am so sorry you felt misunderstood, I am so sorry you felt betrayed and deeply hurt by the words and actions of others.”  These are real thoughts whether they were true or not they are what ultimately ended his life.  It is sad but we have to wake up to this and be truly involved with people.  I have another friend whose son recently committed suicide.  I do not know the details, but am aware he struggled with depression for years.  It is a real thing not a copout or a coward’s response.  People do not ask for it and some don’t even see they are in it.  Be consistent with those you love and do not be easily pushed away.  If a friend reaches out call them back.  You never know you could save a life.   

I am free. I am redeemed.  It has been a journey, but as of September 15 I am free.