Saturday Night Thoughts

I had the most interesting phone call the other night.

My phone displayed the call id - "Need a Bandaid?" when I quickly realized I hadn't talked to Sil in quite sometime. To my surprise she was crying pretty badly. I immediately dropped everything I was doing and listened intently.

It was pretty clear that they just finished a pretty serious argument. And here I was seeing first hand the fallout as a result. I wanted to badly to just hug her. Let her know how dearly loved she is. Cause at that moment it can easily feel like life is hopeless.

She asked me to pray for her and after I finished things still seemed the same. She felt kind of awkward and ended up letting me go. I tried to persist in staying with her (it felt like the least I could do to support her) but she wanted to go. Before she did, I ended up telling her that I loved her. It was kind of weird. I don't really enjoy throwing that out there but I felt so compelled to tell her for some reason. Not because I was trying to charm my way into her pants, but because I had such an urgent need to let her know how dear she was and just how precious she really is (even if it didn't feel like it at the time). To my surprise, she told me she loved me back. It was kind of neat.

Thinking about it now, this whole situation really showcases just how badly I hate broken relationships. I hate it with a passion. It messes everything up and it ends up leaving so much debris. It affects multiple parties. It's effects are long lasting. It's horrible all around. In fact, it may be the only thing that God and I see eye-to-eye on in terms of disdain. If anyone questions the validity of this, I surely hope I have the pleasure of talking with them sometime. One need look no further than my life to see the very damaging ramifications of broken relationships.

And now here was one of my friends going through a similar pain. It felt awful. It's as if my heart was breaking alongside hers. Which is why all I wanted to do was just give her a big hug and let her know I was there. Cause often times that's all I wanted when I was hurting so badly. And instead all I got was people pointing fingers at me and telling me how wrong I was for doing various things. Which is why so many people naturally gravitate toward Jesus. He, more than anyone, had every right to point a finger and tell people how wrong they were and how justified He was.

Yet, in endless grace, He chose to give us a great big hug.