I teased my closest friends that when I get in a new serious relationship, it will be “Hasta la vista Baby” …Audios Amigos, I’m in a relationship you all are history.” It’s the number of singles that disappear once they get in a relationship. Many of them are back on the circuit in six months or one-two years. That would possibly last about a whole three months at most with me if that long. I get bored centering my life on one person.
I like space in a relationship and that space is having friends and outside ministries and interests. I kept the fire burning in my love with my husband, because our relationship was not like the Dead Sea. He had his friends and outside hobbies, and I was going to college and was involved in other outreach ministries. I liked that my parents raised me that they did not smother me and I don’t like to be smothered. Put it this way, those reunions were very sweet when we got back together. I’m sure looking forward to that party we are going to have in heaven in seeing Jesus. That is going to be a sweet reunion. As James Taylor sings, "How sweet it is to be loved by you, (just like honey to the bee babe, yeah now). How sweet it is to be loved by you (it's just like sugar sometimes)." The love of my husband was like sugar or honey and that is how I feel about Jesus.
People can be snowflakes – everyone is unique, or they can be flakes like dandruff where I have to get a bottle of Head N’ Shoulders. (I'll take their offenses to the head Jesus Christ.)
One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. Proverbs 18:24
Like a bad tooth or a lame foot is reliance on the unfaithful in times of trouble. Proverbs 25:19
My brothers, you have proved as unreliable as a seasonal brook that overflows its banks in the spring. Job 6:15
Love May Be Tough With Neighbors
“Like a good neighbor State Farm is there.”
Love can be tough and it sets boundaries. I have a single girlfriend who has a neighbor that steals electricity and wood from her yard. In being kind to our neighbor that does not mean we let people walk on us. “Burn me once shame on you, burn me twice shame on me.” We can “pray our neighbors out of our neighborhood.”
In my current neighborhood, I had good neighbors who moved out and rented out to several different people and then one couple moved in who were using and dealing drugs. One day the police came with rifles and stood in our driveway and pointed their rifles from my car at the neighbor’s house for a domestic violence dispute. I did not know if all the car windows on my new car were going to be shot out by my next door neighbor. The couple separated and I got a chance to talk to the woman about Jesus, and I prayed those neighbors out, now I have better next door neighbors.
We can put up a fence if neighbors complain about kids wandering over in their yard. When people complain about children playing around their yard, I’ve told them, “Well at least they don’t steal your tires.” There was one neighborhood my family lived in where the boys of a single parent home broke into our cars and people’s garage to steal things.
If we experience relatives that steal from us, I don’t see the point of opening up our homes to have family get-together’s. We are not to let people to continue to rip us off. The punishment was rather severe in the past where a person would have their hands cuts off for stealing. Well, I'm glad that is not the punishment now, because I went through a stage in junior high school where I shop-lifted. I got caught by a store clerk stealing earrings at Lafayette Square mall, and the clerk told me to put it back. She said she would call security. It shook me up enough that I quit stealing. Sometimes, when there are consequences for actions in life, as far as getting caught, it does motivate one to quit doing something wrong. I believe we could call those our "wake up calls."
Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. Ephesians 4:28
A biggie theft is a person who steals my joy. We can pray and intercede for others, but does not mean that God has made us a doormat to let people walk all over us who don’t know how to be a friend or are undependable. God wants to make us a strong tower in life. As we may put our children in “time out” sometimes in life we may need a break from a person or a time out from them. It’s God’s wisdom to know when to back off from being a friend.
Job’s friends had the “foot in the mouth disease.” Jesus turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men." Matthew 16:23
What is a stumbling block to me? Like Jesus said about Peter, men's words. It’s men/women who discourages. I don’t care what man has to say, it’s my Father God who is the encourager! Who is influencing the discouraging words like Peter when it’s God who lifts me up and set’s my feet on the rock.
He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. Psalm 40:2
For in the day of trouble he will keep me safe in his dwelling; he will hide me in the shelter of his tabernacle and set me high upon a rock. Psalm 27:5
But you are a shield around me, O LORD; you bestow glory on me and lift up my head. Psalm 3:3
At times, I look at things one-sided and I was upset about coming home from a Bible study on Friday night and being rear ended by a drunk driver. There are scriptures that state God is our rear guard. I wanted to know where are my rear guard angels after that Bible study? I was not the one out partying and getting drunk! This is third time I’ve had someone plow into the back of my car. I've never been hurt in each incident.
But you will not leave in haste or go in flight; for the LORD will go before you, the God of Israel will be your rear guard. Isaiah 52:12
Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard. Isaiah 58:8
When I got out of my car, the woman had hit the towing ball of my car so she did not hurt my car. It was fortunate I did not plow into the car in front of me, since I was on the exit ramp where I was at a complete stop at a red light and then rear ended. When I went in my car to get my cell phone, the woman took off in her car. It was dark and I did not see her license plate. My daughter called me and she said to me that it may have been a “wake up call” for that young woman who looked like she was in her late 20’s and she was drunk "as a skunk."
My sister and I had to work through grief and strife over my mother’s things after her death. I saw a healing of my relationship with my sister that I may have never had if my mother had not passed away. My sister harbored jealousy of me all her life in a wrong perception that my dad favored me above her. I did not understand why she would make negative comments about things I did before I was a Christian, because she constantly criticized me for things that were B.C. (before Christ).
Through the death of my mother was the healing of my sister and my relationship. She was 12-years older and was married when I was six years old so it was a different family with my parents in growing up with my brother that I never knew my sister very well. I got to know my sister better after my mother was gone. It is amazing that something as tragic as losing our mother unexpectingly in the hospital from gall bladder surgery that turned out to be cancer actually worked for good for my sister and my relationship. God is the healer of relationships! An example of this is how God healed the dysfunctional family relationship of Joseph with his brothers in the Bible.
Love May Be Tough With Friends
It takes time to keep long friendships and it's something I work at as far as meeting with my friends for lunch, at their home, talking on the phone or other activities. I don't always have enough time for my friends and disappoint them. I've learned not to overbook myself and keep my activities to one event on a weekend day, that way if something runs over on my time, than I don't disappoint another person by telling them I'm coming to an open house or party and then don’t show up. We disappoint others and disappoint God at times. If we focus on what we don’t do for Jesus, what our friends, family or spouse does not do we become disappointed than we can become angry and bitter about what they don’t do right. I heard a quote, “Resentment is drinking poison in our lives and thinking another person will suffer for it.” The poison of resentment and bitterness only hurts us. When I get mad at my friends, I pray for them and the Lord showed me to also say, “Bless so and so.”
After Job had prayed for his friends, the Lord made him prosperous again and gave him twice as much as he had before. Job 42:10
I get aggravated with people and sometimes it’s a single guy friend. I’ve found it is best that men minister to men. I’m not called to rescue a guy. I’m not a fireman. In secular dating advice it states that if you dump your problems on a woman, you are wanting a mother, not a wife. When I become too involved in a man’s life sometimes I get in the way of what God wants to do. Women are best to minister to women. That is God’s order. Too many people get themselves in a tight spot, because they are out of God’s order.
Joseph was a handsome man and being around Potiphar’s wife, she started testing him day in and day out. The proximity of the relationship was a constant drain on Joseph. He ended up fleeing from adultery and leaving his robe.
No one is greater in this house than I am. My master has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?" And though she spoke to Joseph day after day, he refused to go to bed with her or even be with her. One day he went into the house to attend to his duties, and none of the household servants was inside. She caught him by his cloak and said, "Come to bed with me!" But he left his cloak in her hand and ran out of the house. Genesis 39:9-12
The Bible warns about men taking advantage of single women and widows:
They are the kind who work their way into people's homes and win the confidence of vulnerable women who are burdened with the guilt of sin and controlled by various desires. 2 Timothy 3:6
Long ago, I heard James Dobson discuss how women canned fruit and vegetables, and had a chance to glean from each other's relationships with their husbands. I realized then I needed to have women mentors in my life. We do not have very much of this in our modern society, because women have become very competitive with each other. I think of women mud wrestling, because that is what our society has become where women are jealous of each other. Women become emotionally draining to their husband, because they are not getting emotional support from other women.
Than we have men who hearts are exploding, because men don’t share their burdens, but keep their emotions inside. If I was going to make a complaint about my husband this is #1 big issue I saw that although he had male friends at work with whom he did his hobbies, he withdrew from going to men’s breakfast, retreats, or being involved with a Christian man for a mentor. When we first were married, he started going to Christian men events, but I think much of it was we were in a step-family, and most of the men in church were not, he quit attending them. I really wanted to see my husband involved in Christian men ministries, but that was something I never saw come to pass in my husband’s life.
“Coronary heart disease (CHD), the most common form of heart disease. This type of heart disease is caused by a narrowing of the coronary arteries that feed the heart. CHD is the number one killer of both men and women in the U.S.”
God’s word says that we are to prosper and be in health even as our soul prospers. Apparently, the condition of our soul can determine our physical health:
Dear friend, I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well. 3 John 1:2
I look at friends as a sounding board. I can bounce ideas and thoughts off of them and it helps me make decisions in my life. My friends will point out if I'm being too negative.
The one thing I realize is how much I need other people in life. I believe every one of us are like prisms and can offer a different perspective in life. Each of us are different colors of a rainbow. When I go to a single’s Bible study on Tuesday night and I sit at a table and I hear what someone else receives from God’s word and the message, that person is offering to me a gift. The gift is what God has enlightened them on His word. It talks about different spiritual gifts which are people’s ministries.
In working at a university, it is an environment of being teachable and learning to increase our knowledge. The knowledge may be man’s knowledge of God’s universe, but it is teaching us to have an open mind. When we start closing ourselves off to hear what our brother or sister in Christ has to say concerning God’s word than we are closing ourselves off from God.
They zealously affect you, but not well; for, they would exclude you, that ye may affect them.. Galatians 4:17
We are to affect others to love God. Instead of spreading disease/infections, AIDS, HIV, we can be infectious with the gospel of Christ. My friends are to encourage me to want more of God. When we dig more into God's word and we love God by loving his word. Jesus is the bread of life who came down from heaven. I know I love God when I love to spend time in His word. When I become complacent with God's word, than I know I'm in "deep doo doo spiritually."
So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples," John 8:31
People are amazing to me. God made so many different people from different nationalities, and I am learning more about people every day. I believe it’s the lesson of “noticing.” I did not realize that India has over 3,000 languages in their country and every town is a different tribe with a different language.
Mark Twain said that traveling is a lesson: "It liberates the vandal to travel--you never saw a bigoted, opinionated, stubborn, narrow-minded, self-conceited, almighty mean man in your life but he had stuck in one place since he was born and thought God made the world and dyspepsia and bile for his especial comfort and satisfaction." - The American Abroad speech, 1868.
My husband was amazing to me in that I could depend on him. He had one friend since junior high who was his friend in college, his best man in his first marriage, his best man in our marriage, and then he drove up for my husband's funeral in the middle of the week from St. Louis. When I'm looking for a husband to spend the rest of my days on earth with, I'm looking at a man who has male friends.
I have amazing friends. Before I went on vacation, I contacted my former manager if I could borrow his scuba diving goggles, and although he was in China at the time, he made sure he got his housekeeper to put them in a mailbox for me. I really appreciated it because I had too many eye infections wearing contacts recently, and did not have a chance to go get prescription goggles made. I’m touched by his “bending over backwards” to do this. I'm not good at doing back bends (as flexible) like I was in high school so I appreciate a person doing them now for me as far as being flexible...LOL
I met a single man through a friend who came to one of my house parties who gave me the contact information of two couples before my friend Brandy and I went on a single’s trip to New Zealand. It was a matchmaker trip sponsored by the ABC Television show “The Bachelor.” Visiting the local Kiwis was one of the highlights of our trip in not staying at hotels.
When I was going through a divorce, I had a female work associate that encouraged me and gave me good advise. Since I lost my husband, it has been widows I’ve spoken to that lost their husband 15 years ago that encouraged me. Also, some women I know who have been divorced several years. It’s the Naomi/Ruth type relationship that God provides woman as mentors. For Mary, the mother of Jesus, her cousin Elizabeth was a support to her.
Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. Then they can train the younger women to love their husbands and children, Titus 2:3-4
Not healthy to focus all your life on a man. What happens if you break up or your spouse passes away? Then you have no friends for emotional support. I was very “caught up” in trying to work, go to college part-time and take care of six children at home, but God has always been faithful to give me female friends. One very close woman at work who was a Christian who had been married around 35 years was emotional support while I was married. Every place I’ve worked, God has brought a woman into my life who was a strong tower of support to me. At my current place of employment, it was widow who lost her husband two years before me. I believe the scripture below is relevant to making friends who are non-Christians, because I’ve found many women as a support. I can affect them towards the gospel.
Here's the lesson: Use your worldly resources to benefit others and make friends. Then, when your earthly possessions are gone, they will welcome you to an eternal home. Luke 16:9
God has given me some friends that have been very encouraging in my times of troubles. I believe that is what God has called friendship to be a joy. My mother was my best friend. After my mother passed away, my husband was my best friend and a joy to be with.
Perfume and incense bring joy to the heart, and the pleasantness of one's friend springs from his earnest counsel. Proverbs 27:9
A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity. Proverbs 17:17
His mouth is sweetness itself; he is altogether lovely. This is my lover, this my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem. Song of Solomon 5:16
The first best friend I had since first grade that I went camping with and spent the night at her home, we parted ways in junior high because she stole my clothes. She moved to another school district in high school. I reconciled with her and we hung out as teenagers for awhile, but then she used me to pick up boys at teen dances. When I became a Christian at 17 years old, and started going to Bible studies, she was not interested in being my friend, because there was not anything she could take or use from me anymore. I would only take her to Bible studies and there were not necessarily any cute guys she wanted to pick up. A few years ago she called my mother's house, and I got her phone number and talked to her, and she told me about problems being adopted in her childhood with her mother who was jealous of her relationship with her father. When we come to understand the way people are, it helps in look past their faults and see their needs. God is in the heart-changing business and he also is in the heart healing business.
When I broke my ankle, I was waiting to get an x-ray to see if it was broken and a woman came out who was having hip surgery and the technician staff asked if she need someone to lean on to walk to her car. It made me think of the song, “Lean on Me.” We all need someone to lean on.
Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. Galatians 6:2
Lean On Me – DC Talk
True MC, no slack on the track
Here to tell the people that love's what we lack
In this family we gotta love like Christ
So precise in your life so take this advice
Brother to brother we need to learn to love each other
So lean on me when you're in trouble
I cast my cares on Christ 'cause He cares for me
So when you need a shoulder to cry on, just lean
Lean on me, when you're not strong
And I'll be your friend, I'll help you carry on
For it won't be long 'til
I'm gonna need somebody to lean on
Sometimes in our lives
We all have pain, we all have sorrows
But, if we are wise
We know that there's always tomorrow
Please, swallow your pride
If I have things that you need to borrow
For, no one can fill those of your needs
If you won't let them show
You just call on your brother when you need a hand
We all need somebody to lean on
I just might have some problems that you'd understand
We all need somebody to lean on
Make it funky, make it funky
Make it funky, make it funky
Make it funky, make it funky
Cause I'm housin' this joint
Like a brother with an attitude
And comin' straight so you best give me latitude
Leanin' on my boys from the word get go
And bein' there for them cause the Lord said so
Many of us just don't know what to do
Well take it here and now from the boy named true
Don't dog a brother out when he stumbles and falls
Just be there to lean on y'all
Call me, call me, just call me,
Call me, call me, just call me, lean on me
Don't you know that I'll be there, you can lean on me
Don't you know that I'll be there, you can lean on me
Don't you know that I'll be there, you can lean on me
I like space in a relationship and that space is having friends and outside ministries and interests. I kept the fire burning in my love with my husband, because our relationship was not like the Dead Sea. He had his friends and outside hobbies, and I was going to college and was involved in other outreach ministries. I liked that my parents raised me that they did not smother me and I don’t like to be smothered. Put it this way, those reunions were very sweet when we got back together. I’m sure looking forward to that party we are going to have in heaven in seeing Jesus. That is going to be a sweet reunion. As James Taylor sings, "How sweet it is to be loved by you, (just like honey to the bee babe, yeah now). How sweet it is to be loved by you (it's just like sugar sometimes)." The love of my husband was like sugar or honey and that is how I feel about Jesus.
People can be snowflakes – everyone is unique, or they can be flakes like dandruff where I have to get a bottle of Head N’ Shoulders. (I'll take their offenses to the head Jesus Christ.)
One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. Proverbs 18:24
Like a bad tooth or a lame foot is reliance on the unfaithful in times of trouble. Proverbs 25:19
My brothers, you have proved as unreliable as a seasonal brook that overflows its banks in the spring. Job 6:15
Love May Be Tough With Neighbors
“Like a good neighbor State Farm is there.”
Love can be tough and it sets boundaries. I have a single girlfriend who has a neighbor that steals electricity and wood from her yard. In being kind to our neighbor that does not mean we let people walk on us. “Burn me once shame on you, burn me twice shame on me.” We can “pray our neighbors out of our neighborhood.”
In my current neighborhood, I had good neighbors who moved out and rented out to several different people and then one couple moved in who were using and dealing drugs. One day the police came with rifles and stood in our driveway and pointed their rifles from my car at the neighbor’s house for a domestic violence dispute. I did not know if all the car windows on my new car were going to be shot out by my next door neighbor. The couple separated and I got a chance to talk to the woman about Jesus, and I prayed those neighbors out, now I have better next door neighbors.
We can put up a fence if neighbors complain about kids wandering over in their yard. When people complain about children playing around their yard, I’ve told them, “Well at least they don’t steal your tires.” There was one neighborhood my family lived in where the boys of a single parent home broke into our cars and people’s garage to steal things.
If we experience relatives that steal from us, I don’t see the point of opening up our homes to have family get-together’s. We are not to let people to continue to rip us off. The punishment was rather severe in the past where a person would have their hands cuts off for stealing. Well, I'm glad that is not the punishment now, because I went through a stage in junior high school where I shop-lifted. I got caught by a store clerk stealing earrings at Lafayette Square mall, and the clerk told me to put it back. She said she would call security. It shook me up enough that I quit stealing. Sometimes, when there are consequences for actions in life, as far as getting caught, it does motivate one to quit doing something wrong. I believe we could call those our "wake up calls."
Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. Ephesians 4:28
A biggie theft is a person who steals my joy. We can pray and intercede for others, but does not mean that God has made us a doormat to let people walk all over us who don’t know how to be a friend or are undependable. God wants to make us a strong tower in life. As we may put our children in “time out” sometimes in life we may need a break from a person or a time out from them. It’s God’s wisdom to know when to back off from being a friend.
Job’s friends had the “foot in the mouth disease.” Jesus turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men." Matthew 16:23
What is a stumbling block to me? Like Jesus said about Peter, men's words. It’s men/women who discourages. I don’t care what man has to say, it’s my Father God who is the encourager! Who is influencing the discouraging words like Peter when it’s God who lifts me up and set’s my feet on the rock.
He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. Psalm 40:2
For in the day of trouble he will keep me safe in his dwelling; he will hide me in the shelter of his tabernacle and set me high upon a rock. Psalm 27:5
But you are a shield around me, O LORD; you bestow glory on me and lift up my head. Psalm 3:3
At times, I look at things one-sided and I was upset about coming home from a Bible study on Friday night and being rear ended by a drunk driver. There are scriptures that state God is our rear guard. I wanted to know where are my rear guard angels after that Bible study? I was not the one out partying and getting drunk! This is third time I’ve had someone plow into the back of my car. I've never been hurt in each incident.
But you will not leave in haste or go in flight; for the LORD will go before you, the God of Israel will be your rear guard. Isaiah 52:12
Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard. Isaiah 58:8
When I got out of my car, the woman had hit the towing ball of my car so she did not hurt my car. It was fortunate I did not plow into the car in front of me, since I was on the exit ramp where I was at a complete stop at a red light and then rear ended. When I went in my car to get my cell phone, the woman took off in her car. It was dark and I did not see her license plate. My daughter called me and she said to me that it may have been a “wake up call” for that young woman who looked like she was in her late 20’s and she was drunk "as a skunk."
My sister and I had to work through grief and strife over my mother’s things after her death. I saw a healing of my relationship with my sister that I may have never had if my mother had not passed away. My sister harbored jealousy of me all her life in a wrong perception that my dad favored me above her. I did not understand why she would make negative comments about things I did before I was a Christian, because she constantly criticized me for things that were B.C. (before Christ).
Through the death of my mother was the healing of my sister and my relationship. She was 12-years older and was married when I was six years old so it was a different family with my parents in growing up with my brother that I never knew my sister very well. I got to know my sister better after my mother was gone. It is amazing that something as tragic as losing our mother unexpectingly in the hospital from gall bladder surgery that turned out to be cancer actually worked for good for my sister and my relationship. God is the healer of relationships! An example of this is how God healed the dysfunctional family relationship of Joseph with his brothers in the Bible.
Love May Be Tough With Friends
It takes time to keep long friendships and it's something I work at as far as meeting with my friends for lunch, at their home, talking on the phone or other activities. I don't always have enough time for my friends and disappoint them. I've learned not to overbook myself and keep my activities to one event on a weekend day, that way if something runs over on my time, than I don't disappoint another person by telling them I'm coming to an open house or party and then don’t show up. We disappoint others and disappoint God at times. If we focus on what we don’t do for Jesus, what our friends, family or spouse does not do we become disappointed than we can become angry and bitter about what they don’t do right. I heard a quote, “Resentment is drinking poison in our lives and thinking another person will suffer for it.” The poison of resentment and bitterness only hurts us. When I get mad at my friends, I pray for them and the Lord showed me to also say, “Bless so and so.”
After Job had prayed for his friends, the Lord made him prosperous again and gave him twice as much as he had before. Job 42:10
I get aggravated with people and sometimes it’s a single guy friend. I’ve found it is best that men minister to men. I’m not called to rescue a guy. I’m not a fireman. In secular dating advice it states that if you dump your problems on a woman, you are wanting a mother, not a wife. When I become too involved in a man’s life sometimes I get in the way of what God wants to do. Women are best to minister to women. That is God’s order. Too many people get themselves in a tight spot, because they are out of God’s order.
Joseph was a handsome man and being around Potiphar’s wife, she started testing him day in and day out. The proximity of the relationship was a constant drain on Joseph. He ended up fleeing from adultery and leaving his robe.
No one is greater in this house than I am. My master has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?" And though she spoke to Joseph day after day, he refused to go to bed with her or even be with her. One day he went into the house to attend to his duties, and none of the household servants was inside. She caught him by his cloak and said, "Come to bed with me!" But he left his cloak in her hand and ran out of the house. Genesis 39:9-12
The Bible warns about men taking advantage of single women and widows:
They are the kind who work their way into people's homes and win the confidence of vulnerable women who are burdened with the guilt of sin and controlled by various desires. 2 Timothy 3:6
Long ago, I heard James Dobson discuss how women canned fruit and vegetables, and had a chance to glean from each other's relationships with their husbands. I realized then I needed to have women mentors in my life. We do not have very much of this in our modern society, because women have become very competitive with each other. I think of women mud wrestling, because that is what our society has become where women are jealous of each other. Women become emotionally draining to their husband, because they are not getting emotional support from other women.
Than we have men who hearts are exploding, because men don’t share their burdens, but keep their emotions inside. If I was going to make a complaint about my husband this is #1 big issue I saw that although he had male friends at work with whom he did his hobbies, he withdrew from going to men’s breakfast, retreats, or being involved with a Christian man for a mentor. When we first were married, he started going to Christian men events, but I think much of it was we were in a step-family, and most of the men in church were not, he quit attending them. I really wanted to see my husband involved in Christian men ministries, but that was something I never saw come to pass in my husband’s life.
“Coronary heart disease (CHD), the most common form of heart disease. This type of heart disease is caused by a narrowing of the coronary arteries that feed the heart. CHD is the number one killer of both men and women in the U.S.”
God’s word says that we are to prosper and be in health even as our soul prospers. Apparently, the condition of our soul can determine our physical health:
Dear friend, I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well. 3 John 1:2
I look at friends as a sounding board. I can bounce ideas and thoughts off of them and it helps me make decisions in my life. My friends will point out if I'm being too negative.
The one thing I realize is how much I need other people in life. I believe every one of us are like prisms and can offer a different perspective in life. Each of us are different colors of a rainbow. When I go to a single’s Bible study on Tuesday night and I sit at a table and I hear what someone else receives from God’s word and the message, that person is offering to me a gift. The gift is what God has enlightened them on His word. It talks about different spiritual gifts which are people’s ministries.
In working at a university, it is an environment of being teachable and learning to increase our knowledge. The knowledge may be man’s knowledge of God’s universe, but it is teaching us to have an open mind. When we start closing ourselves off to hear what our brother or sister in Christ has to say concerning God’s word than we are closing ourselves off from God.
They zealously affect you, but not well; for, they would exclude you, that ye may affect them.. Galatians 4:17
We are to affect others to love God. Instead of spreading disease/infections, AIDS, HIV, we can be infectious with the gospel of Christ. My friends are to encourage me to want more of God. When we dig more into God's word and we love God by loving his word. Jesus is the bread of life who came down from heaven. I know I love God when I love to spend time in His word. When I become complacent with God's word, than I know I'm in "deep doo doo spiritually."
So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples," John 8:31
People are amazing to me. God made so many different people from different nationalities, and I am learning more about people every day. I believe it’s the lesson of “noticing.” I did not realize that India has over 3,000 languages in their country and every town is a different tribe with a different language.
Mark Twain said that traveling is a lesson: "It liberates the vandal to travel--you never saw a bigoted, opinionated, stubborn, narrow-minded, self-conceited, almighty mean man in your life but he had stuck in one place since he was born and thought God made the world and dyspepsia and bile for his especial comfort and satisfaction." - The American Abroad speech, 1868.
My husband was amazing to me in that I could depend on him. He had one friend since junior high who was his friend in college, his best man in his first marriage, his best man in our marriage, and then he drove up for my husband's funeral in the middle of the week from St. Louis. When I'm looking for a husband to spend the rest of my days on earth with, I'm looking at a man who has male friends.
I have amazing friends. Before I went on vacation, I contacted my former manager if I could borrow his scuba diving goggles, and although he was in China at the time, he made sure he got his housekeeper to put them in a mailbox for me. I really appreciated it because I had too many eye infections wearing contacts recently, and did not have a chance to go get prescription goggles made. I’m touched by his “bending over backwards” to do this. I'm not good at doing back bends (as flexible) like I was in high school so I appreciate a person doing them now for me as far as being flexible...LOL
I met a single man through a friend who came to one of my house parties who gave me the contact information of two couples before my friend Brandy and I went on a single’s trip to New Zealand. It was a matchmaker trip sponsored by the ABC Television show “The Bachelor.” Visiting the local Kiwis was one of the highlights of our trip in not staying at hotels.
When I was going through a divorce, I had a female work associate that encouraged me and gave me good advise. Since I lost my husband, it has been widows I’ve spoken to that lost their husband 15 years ago that encouraged me. Also, some women I know who have been divorced several years. It’s the Naomi/Ruth type relationship that God provides woman as mentors. For Mary, the mother of Jesus, her cousin Elizabeth was a support to her.
Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. Then they can train the younger women to love their husbands and children, Titus 2:3-4
Not healthy to focus all your life on a man. What happens if you break up or your spouse passes away? Then you have no friends for emotional support. I was very “caught up” in trying to work, go to college part-time and take care of six children at home, but God has always been faithful to give me female friends. One very close woman at work who was a Christian who had been married around 35 years was emotional support while I was married. Every place I’ve worked, God has brought a woman into my life who was a strong tower of support to me. At my current place of employment, it was widow who lost her husband two years before me. I believe the scripture below is relevant to making friends who are non-Christians, because I’ve found many women as a support. I can affect them towards the gospel.
Here's the lesson: Use your worldly resources to benefit others and make friends. Then, when your earthly possessions are gone, they will welcome you to an eternal home. Luke 16:9
God has given me some friends that have been very encouraging in my times of troubles. I believe that is what God has called friendship to be a joy. My mother was my best friend. After my mother passed away, my husband was my best friend and a joy to be with.
Perfume and incense bring joy to the heart, and the pleasantness of one's friend springs from his earnest counsel. Proverbs 27:9
A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity. Proverbs 17:17
His mouth is sweetness itself; he is altogether lovely. This is my lover, this my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem. Song of Solomon 5:16
The first best friend I had since first grade that I went camping with and spent the night at her home, we parted ways in junior high because she stole my clothes. She moved to another school district in high school. I reconciled with her and we hung out as teenagers for awhile, but then she used me to pick up boys at teen dances. When I became a Christian at 17 years old, and started going to Bible studies, she was not interested in being my friend, because there was not anything she could take or use from me anymore. I would only take her to Bible studies and there were not necessarily any cute guys she wanted to pick up. A few years ago she called my mother's house, and I got her phone number and talked to her, and she told me about problems being adopted in her childhood with her mother who was jealous of her relationship with her father. When we come to understand the way people are, it helps in look past their faults and see their needs. God is in the heart-changing business and he also is in the heart healing business.
When I broke my ankle, I was waiting to get an x-ray to see if it was broken and a woman came out who was having hip surgery and the technician staff asked if she need someone to lean on to walk to her car. It made me think of the song, “Lean on Me.” We all need someone to lean on.
Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. Galatians 6:2
Lean On Me – DC Talk
True MC, no slack on the track
Here to tell the people that love's what we lack
In this family we gotta love like Christ
So precise in your life so take this advice
Brother to brother we need to learn to love each other
So lean on me when you're in trouble
I cast my cares on Christ 'cause He cares for me
So when you need a shoulder to cry on, just lean
Lean on me, when you're not strong
And I'll be your friend, I'll help you carry on
For it won't be long 'til
I'm gonna need somebody to lean on
Sometimes in our lives
We all have pain, we all have sorrows
But, if we are wise
We know that there's always tomorrow
Please, swallow your pride
If I have things that you need to borrow
For, no one can fill those of your needs
If you won't let them show
You just call on your brother when you need a hand
We all need somebody to lean on
I just might have some problems that you'd understand
We all need somebody to lean on
Make it funky, make it funky
Make it funky, make it funky
Make it funky, make it funky
Cause I'm housin' this joint
Like a brother with an attitude
And comin' straight so you best give me latitude
Leanin' on my boys from the word get go
And bein' there for them cause the Lord said so
Many of us just don't know what to do
Well take it here and now from the boy named true
Don't dog a brother out when he stumbles and falls
Just be there to lean on y'all
Call me, call me, just call me,
Call me, call me, just call me, lean on me
Don't you know that I'll be there, you can lean on me
Don't you know that I'll be there, you can lean on me
Don't you know that I'll be there, you can lean on me
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