YOU KNOW THOSE PEOPLE? YOU KNOW, THE ONES WHOM YOU CAN NEVER SEEM TO PLEASE NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO?
The ones who believe your world and everyone else's should revolve around them?
Yes, those people. The ones who truly think you are wrong in everything you do, and if only you would do it their way, you would be much happier and would succeed.
I have one of those people as a friend. I have, in fact, put up with it for almost 7 years now.
The bossiness, the rude remarks, and the unnecessary strictures she condemns me with are far from welcome.
She came over tonight - and went through my closet like girlfriends do - except the first thing she could think of saying was "God, you're so much bigger than me! Guess I'm not borrowing clothes from you..."
It took everything within me not to tell her to leave. I have dealt with these sort of comments for years. And I am so, so incredibly sick of them.
Not being good enough for someone you care about is one of the worst feelings in the world, is it not? When you love someone for their strengths and weaknesses, and they can only return that with loving you for what they think is good in you. Not for what truly is good in you.
I know for a fact that I am a strong, independent, confident, outgoing, and capable 16 year old. And I never doubt that until she comes around.
Comments are made about how silly my faith is, how much more I should work out, what size jeans I wear....all to make herself feel better about "who she is".
I will never be strong enough for her. I will never wear a size 00 in jeans like she thinks every girl should. And I will most certainly not give up my faith because she thinks it's unreasonably artificial.
But, after taking this all in for consideration....
I don't understand why she keeps calling.
Why does she keep wanting to pursue a friendship if I am that terrible of a person and can do nothing right?
It baffles me, and angers me, then saddens me.
How dare she tell me what I can and cannot do in my life - how dare she think she can move away and still just waltz on in like I don't have a life. How dare she think I will stop everything for her - commitments I have had for weeks - to spend an hour with her. How dare she, is what I always think.
But then my heart softens and I see the true reason for this.
I don't push her away. I don't correct her on the stupid things. I've never once told her to leave. And you know why? I don't say this to glorify my actions at all, but it's because I've always loved her for who she is. I honestly don't know why either, because I don't want to.
But I've always been compelled to love her because I know no one else is going to do it for me.
No one else is going to show her Christ's love. That's my job. And that's why God has kept her in my life this long, I know it is - because He knows that it's a challenge for me to love her - but something that needs to happen and I need to do to grow.
And I've never looked at it like that until now. Until she left and I sat and thought about it.
I may not like the rude and stinging comments about my faith, family, no-dating policy, pants size, etc. But I do like her enough to love her. And so that's what I'm doing.
I desire though, to love those who hate, even if it means dealing with a few strictures along the way.
So now the question is...
DO YOU DESIRE TO? && EVEN MORE THAN THAT - WILL YOU?
oh man. i've got a friendship veryy similar to this, but honestly- when the comments and remarks got to a certain point, i just couldnt handle it. it broke me down completely. but now, she's coming back and wanting to pursue a relationship, but i'm so scared to be hurt again- haha and now you're challenging me to approach this differently :)
ReplyDeleteGirl, I felt like 16 year old me was writing this.
ReplyDeleteWord for word, I had a friend like that.
It baffled me for so long, why she treated me like that, and why she wanted to be my friend at the same time.
She was the sort of girl who wanted an accessory, not a friend. Someone she knew would go with her everywhere so she wouldn't have to walk in alone. Someone that she could control, basically.
I wasn't willing to be that for her, and it got us into a lot of arguments.
I had friends who couldn't understand why I would want to be friends with her, people were angry with me that I was, and I wasn't sure how to fix it. I liked her, but she just had too many moments where she was okay with offending me, belittling me in front of others for her own gain.
After a while I realized what was going on, and she partially admitted it to me at one point.
She knew i was a good friend, she knew I was caring, loving, loyal, encouraging, and would never hurt her.
She wanted and craved a friend like that and in high school they are hard to find. So while she got a good friend out of it, she was jealous that she wasn't that to others.
She wanted that "good friend" that I was being, but she was envious at the same time.
We aren't friends anymore, I eventually broke things off with her. In our particular situation, I felt she needed to know she needs to respect her friends in order to keep them, and I felt me sticking around ultimately as doing more harm and "okay"ing what she was doing.
I hope it all works out for you! I know how difficult those situations can be.