Categorizing your friendships

I just read a passage that literally made me stop in mid-sentence. It was about friendship and it asked that we make a list of our friends putting them in one of three categories. Life giving friends, life draining friends and friends who are and should remain acquaintances. The people in our lives all fit into one of those three categories. Now, I haven’t done the exercise yet, but what stopped me was wondering which category I would find myself in, in others eyes. All of us want to be included in the first category, but just because that is where we’d like to be positioned, doesn’t mean that that is where we’d fall.
Life giving relationships are not necessarily ones that are problem free; it is just that they have more of the tendency to build others up (and not falsely). These are the people who you trust will be there for you, should you find yourself in the position of need. Just because it may work one way, does not make it work both ways. If the relationship lacks reciprocity, it is not included in this category. Doesn’t this then work against the whole viewpoint of not judging others?

I don’t think so. You see, even though there will be times when we "fail" our friends by not being available at a given moment or in a given way; we are able to appreciate something in their character that allows us to be drawn to them. A life draining person would (I think) be immediately recognizable as someone whose needs and presence suck the life right out of each and every person they meet. Again, in my opinion, they would be hypercritical and one would never be able to meet their standards and they wouldn’t have any problem letting you know when and how you have failed them. But on top of that, they would constantly demand that you try, because their needs must be first and foremost on their mind and therefore yours. I started to type ewww, but I think ouch is a better reflection on this type.

The acquaintance friend is what I have always termed a "Ya-ha" friend. It is the person you meet casually and hang around with, but never get beyond having a surface relationship with. You share, but only to a point. Something in this relationship keeps you wary and you just never aspire to anything deeper. Should you attempt to do so, this is usually short-lived as they quickly find some way to eradicate trust.
But getting back to judging. The source with which I read all this was in Stephen W. Smith’s new book "The Jesus Life". What I found fascinating was that Jesus wanted and needed friends, and He knew everything about each of his (and us) and yet still invited them in. Do you get that? He knew Judas would betray him, that Thomas would doubt and that Peter would deny Him and yet, He still invited them into His inner circle.
The inner circle is another term I have used in my life. As Smith writes, "We can have many acquaintances in life, but we do not have the heart capacity to have many deep friends." Interestingly as we get older, the capacity seems to diminish. And again, interestingly, I understand that phenomenon.

As we age we get set in our ways and some are too rigid in their approach to want to change. I have heard repeatedly from friends that they feel that unless they stay status quo, they run the risk of losing their friends. My reply to this makes me think that they are not life giving friends then. Each of us is a sinner, a work in progress. That does not imply being stagnant, but rather a sense of movement. Life is not stagnant, life is moving. Get the point?!

I am a sinner, I am not perfect, but in my lack of, I have been represented as being fun/a goofball. If that analogy were used in the appropriate time and place, I would then hope that my status would be that of a life giver. I can not be all things to all people, but at 56, I no longer wish to be. I have found a niche in which I am more or less comfortable and wish to be pro-active in sharing the good, the bad and the ugly (as one of my life-giving friends calls it!) But for others my current needs  take away from theirs. 

As my heart is breaking at a very poignant time in my life, I am surrounded with the best God has to offer. I worry about "sucking the life" out of those I care about, because I am not use to being on the receiving end; but this is what is meant about the gift of reciprocity. Sometimes it does have to be about you – even if you don’t want it to. This is not allowing yourself to wallow, but instead giving a chance to allow others to do for you what you have done for others (whether it is them or someone they have watched you help). My heart is full of gratitude for the love and compassion being shown to me (and my husband). It is very humbling, but in a good way. You see, if you stand too long on your own strength, never allowing yourself to accept help, when you finally really need it, who will be there for you? God shows himself in our weakness. Too often we belittle those whose weakness we don’t understand! Why don’t we understand it? Because we don’t share the gift of reciprocity which is the key to life-giving friendships.
Which category defines you?
Looking up!Barb

Difficult life lessons

Each morning I read from a devotional "Jesus Calling" by Sarah Young. Yesterday’s read "This is a time in your life when you must learn to let go: of loved ones, of possessions, of control. In order to let go of something that is precious to you, you need to rest in My Presence, where you are complete. Take time to bask in the Light of My Love. As you relax more and more, your grasping hand gradually opens us, releasing your prized possession into My care."

It continued, but the significance of that paragraph was profound to me. For the past year I have blogged about an almost continuing theme revolving around cancer. I have been on the "giving" end of being a caregiver, outside my home. It was never and still is NOT about my giving, or me but instead about the love I have felt and still feel that God has blessed me with in my desire to share with others and for some inexplicable reason especially those with cancer.

I haven’t blogged much this year, not for the fact I haven’t had thoughts or feelings, but instead because I’ve had too many and couldn’t grasp them all. At the onset of this year, I learned that my sister was diagnosed with breast cancer. Just 2 weeks ago, we learned that my husband has adenocarcinoma (lung cancer – non-smoking) and in 5 weeks, our daughter is getting married. I don’t share this at this moment to garner sympathy. Is our plate full, sure, but like so many others, life is seemingly one chaotic thing after another. These are the thoughts I have tried to express in past blogs – that we ALL are too busy. It is in having a diagnosis that we finally garner the lesson of what is truly important in our lives.

As we grapple with the issues at hand, it has been interesting and humbling to watch the events of our lives unfold. There are some who would view this blog and my sharing it as wrong, mostly because their perception in how I handle things would not be how they would deal with the circumstances. They would not be able to comprehend that my view of life is one in which the journey is shared with the hope of gaining and sharing insight. I am open in sharing just about everything in life, and I don’t view their way as wrong, just different from mine.

I had a keen sense of this insight yesterday and it was in regard to the lessons the Bible (and therefore) Christ is teaching us. Repeatedly I hear that we should exhort the teaching of the Bible, but what are they? Love one another is the ONLY theme throughout the entire book. How we love one another may be different, but just because it is different does NOT make it incorrect. I challenge anyone to tell me otherwise. Actually, those who think that their way is the only way offend me. Self-righteous judgments based on misinterpreted biblical principles applied to anyone’s life are wrong. God and ONLY God is capable of knowing what is in our hearts. How dare anyone try to place their interpretation of another’s situation into their self-prescribed context of the way things should be handled. It is wrong enough that they do this, but when they lack the good taste to keep these opinions to themselves they have no earthly idea of the hurtful havoc they spew.

Do I sound angry? Then you would be correct. I have been the recipient of this "well-meaning" horse manure. It is with every ounce of my being that I not say anything hurtful back, but thinking it is just as bad. Turn the other cheek is the way Christ says. But how often? Seventy times seven, I believe is what is referenced and I don’t believe that means you get knocked down 490 times before you can say something, it means you persevere through turning the matter over to God. But I’m still pretty darn angry!
I’m not looking to make a scapegoat out of anyone. I will admit and did admit in the opening lines somewhere about this experience being a humbling one. It is humbling to lose control over one’s life. It is difficult to let those we love "go." The possessions, yeah those too, can be difficult to release.

All this made me recall my hospice training. Each of us was given (20) 3x5 cards. The instructor gave us 5 categories. The categories were people, feelings, possessions, experiences and ideals. Now I’m drawing from memory here, so it may be a bit skewed. As near as I can recollect, under people we could write people’s names or classifications meaning spouses, children, sisters/brothers, parents or name them individually. Anyway, once we had completed the 20 cards. We turned them over, leaving them in their categories. Next in the exercise, we were told to arbitrarily pick 2 cards from each pile and get rid of them. Then she started with her "story." The story went: each of us had been diagnosed with a cancer. One by one as the story unfolded, we had to release a card from our stack. We weren’t given but a minute to do so. Quickly we released the unnecessary from our lives and usually first to go were possessions. As the story unfolded and our cards diminished once again we lost "control" over our circumstances and I believe it was when we only had 2 cards left. We then had to turn to the person sitting next to us and without looking they got to take a card from us. In the end, and by God’s grace, my last card in my hand was God’s. But the "pain" I suffered as I lost the control over choosing was as if I had actually lost my loved ones. Gone were my dreams, my experiences, my possessions, my dignity!

As I sit here, recalling the opening lines of my devotional and I realize that I am no longer in control of my destiny, I realized that I had better put my money where my mouth has been for all the blogs I’ve written to date. Am I afraid – you betcha! Can I fix what is occurring? No way! Now is the time that I will have to weather the test of faith. And in that I need to be clear. My faith is NOT based on someone else’s convoluted interpretation colored by their bias. Love one another is Christ’s message. As humans we are born sinners, but lest we all forget, Christ exhorted those readying to throw stones to examine themselves before launching their projectiles. My way may not be the way you would walk, but it is the way I perceive Christ leading me!



Looking up!
Barb