In High School, I had five best friends. The six of us did everything together, even fight. Today, I speak to one of them. This is not okay.
These five girls knew absolutely everything about me. Everything that is, except my heart for the Lord. Why is that you ask? I wish that I knew. We talked about EVERYTHING--everything except Christ. At 17, I was the biggest chicken when it came to following Christ. I mean, I did everything I was supposed to and avoiding everything I was supposed to, but I hardly ever spoke His name to anyone, my friends included. I had a judgmental heart, and a cocky attitude, and no room for Christ in conversations with my friends. Because of all these things I had built up in my heart above the Father, I chose the let my friendships suffer. Anytime something went wrong, I would either try to fix it on my own, or shun them because I was a "better Christian" than them. I mean, SERIOUSLY Reagan?! I was so far off from what I was supposed to be doing and how I was supposed to be living, but my ego refused to let me see that. In college, I tried to maintain contact with these girls for the first year or so, but slowly, one of them would do something I didn't like and I would just let them drop off the face of the Earth without fighting for them or my friendship with them at all. I would become so angry with them because they weren't doing what I wanted them to do that I just let them run away from me as fast as they could and I did nothing about it.
This morning, while I was driving back from Sonic, God hit me HARD with this revelation. It was never THEIR fault that our friendships didn't work, it was mine. I should have loved them unconditionally with the love of the Father, but because I wasn't taking the time to KNOW the love of the Father, I couldn't do that. Granted, I didn't agree with some of the choices they were making, but instead of trying to talk to them in love, I let them go. Today, I realized that my heart is so hardened against them that I began to cry. I let my wants and pride get in the way, when I should have been so consumed with the love of the Father that I had no choice but to love them. I've been living with guilt about how I've treated them, and been thinking constantly about what I could do to change it or fix it. Truth is though, there's nothing I can do about the past, as much as I wish I could. All I can do is continue to fall more in love with the Father and let Him continue to stir my affections for Him and change my heart.
I can't believe how far I've come since then in my walk with the Father. Granted, I am NO WHERE near where I need to be or want to be, but I'm growing. At least, I can see these things in myself now and am able to love my friends instead of lose them. My pride is still huge, but God is tearing down walls in my life that are revealing who He wants me to be and, that, I LOVE. I know that the Father has shown me this today so that He can began breaking down my hardened heart and replacing it with a heart of love, a heart of His love.
I know this may not make much since to y'all, but I felt the need to write it. I hadn't blogged in a while, and this hit me this morning so I felt the need to write it down so that I'll remember it.
I wasn't perfect then. I'm not perfect now. I'm a work in progress, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
