Faith Talk: With Friends like These…

“God is not pleased with your relationship. You can cry and pray all you want but this relationship is not going to last”.

I was shocked, a little taken aback and BIG mad! Who did this chick think she was? As far as I was concerned, this was none of her business. This was the man that I wanted to marry, that I was going to marry. I’d poured everything into this relationship, and here she was telling me that it would fail? That she didn’t see it happening. If only to spite her, I stubbornly dug my claws even deeper into the relationship as I set out to prove her wrong.

And I damn near lost my mind in the process.

God had been answering my prayers for months regarding the relationship. Just not the way that I wanted. He gave me dream after dream and every last one of them was negative. I wanted a yes so badly, I couldn’t even fathom that it was God’s way of communicating a “no”. I took all of the red flags he showed me, and made them into clothing. 

When I moved in with Marietta, it was supposed to be a temporary situation. I needed a place to stay after graduation, as I job hunted. I knew her from church, and she had always been cool, funny and like a big sister. I don’t even remember what prompted me to ask her, but she hesitantly agreed. It was all well and good until she started to stick her nose in my relationship.

I was miserable. Not only because she had the audacity to speak against my relationship but truthfully I had no peace about the relationship. I was mentally and emotionally drained, but I kept trying to convince myself that I was happy and that this was what I really wanted. So I fought her, and I rejected what God was telling me. Didn’t they both see how much I had invested?

Deep down, I knew this wasn’t God’s will for my life. This was not my future. And it wasn’t because of abuse, or unnecessary drama, or because he was a horrible person. Our destinies simply weren’t tied to each other, and moving forward would have been a huge mistake. Both of us would have eventually drifted in opposite directions, potentially damaging each other in the process. We loved each other but we were both immature, emotionally unhealthy and simply too scared to move on.

The dreams continued to come more frequently, each one darker than the next, as conflicting voices began tormenting my mind, and depression came in waves.  As I began to learn what the dreams meant, my defiance started waver but I was still blinded by my selfish desires. This is what I wanted, and I didn’t know how to let go. I spent most of my nights crying into the couch, drowning in misery.

One morning, I woke up with a sense of clarity I hadn’t felt in a months. After a short conversation with my ex,  I ended the relationship.  Although my heart felt like it had been ripped out of my body and set on fire, the roaring ocean of conflicting emotions inside of me immediately became a quiet lake. It was eerie. Somewhere, in the middle of the searing pain was another vaguely familiar sensation: Peace. Finally.

Eventually, I had to go back to Marietta  and humbly say “thank you”.  She was right. And through all of the turmoil, depression, anger, and often intense disagreements, she never washed her hands of me. She was always willing to pray with, listen to and challenge me.

The same woman whose guts I could not stand, I would slice you for her today.  She became my best friend.  All because she had the audacity to tell me the truth. She had an idea of where God wanted to take me and when she saw me skipping merrily down a path in the opposite direction, she loved me enough to tell me.

Over the years, my circle of friends has shifted dramatically. It may be more accurate to refer to it as a triangle at this point. And although my friends all have vastly different personalities,  there is a common thread between them: they are truthful to a fault. They are open books, who will not spare your feelings if you’re out of pocket. It’s one of the things that I appreciate most about them. I love not having to second guess how they feel about me. More than that though, I love their loyalty. Not just to me, but to my purpose in life.

See, many people count loyalty as being loyal to them and their feelings.  That kind of loyalty is misplaced and in the long run, unhelpful. For example, my friend Lashelle is an amazing entrepreneur. She is always creating, always seeking to empower, and always about her business. If she decides to quit that path and become a hermit goat farmer in the Alpines, I will NOT support that decision. Why? Because I know that’s a far cry from what she is called to do and while there is no doubt in my mind that her goats would be fabulous, I know it’s not God’s intended destination for her.

When Marietta got accepted into an accelerated program that would propel her career, we were both super excited. This was a huge but necessary step for her and I was here for it! Then we learned that the day of her very first class fell on. My. Wedding .Day. I was crushed. I needed her to be there.

Unfortunately, the program was so strict, you were only allowed to miss class for emergencies like a death in the family. We tried everything: writing letters, pleading with the leaders of the program, etc. All to no avail. She told me she was thinking of starting the program next year instead, and even though my heart was bleeding I told her absolutely not. I would not ask her to set herself back on my behalf, no matter how we both felt. So off to class she went.

When it comes to who my friends date, the plans they have for business, or the choices they make, I am not silent.  I know the potential that lies in each of them, based on what they have told me and more importantly what God shows me concerning them. This means that as a friend, I will not cosign a bad decision for the sake of your happiness. My loyalty lies with your purpose, not with your feelings.

I want all of my friends to be great, but support is so much more than enabling and telling someone “yes” all of the time. It means also loving them enough to be brutally honest even when you know it will hurt, instead of sitting idly by watching them fail over and over as you think to yourself “why doesn’t she just…”.

And I expect nothing less from them.

Proverbs 27:6 NLT “Wounds from a sincere friend are better than many kisses from an enemy.”

Can your friends count on you to give them the hard truths?