For most of my lifetime, I have heard of the so called fair weather friend and at each time, have discounted that as a phrase not likely to ever apply to my friends. I think of all the times I have thrown caution to the wind, running, barefooted down the road, to be there to administer bandages, both literal and mental for the wounds of my friends. I did so without keeping score of whether they would be there for me. I just knew that if they needed me, I would be there. I was there for them, and I always thought they would be there for me when the chips were down. Learning a different lesson is difficult and heart rendering to say the least. At last, it seems, these friendships come with a price of the highest value….a value that most of us dont regularly run currency in. It really slices deeply when you learn that you do, in fact, have such true weather friends. I had read and loved the writings of a poet who said that a true friendship is not a garden of which needs to be tended. I had two long time friends who I thought would be here for me forever, as I had been for them. In years past, I had stood outside doorways banging for someone to let them out, cried with them when they were places they did not want to be, and forgiven them for times when they were to be here for me but werent, laughing instead of criticizing. Here today…they are gone when the going gets tough. One friend simply said it wasnt convenient to rekindle our friendship. No explanation, no reason….just a simple flick of the key board. So many small words and an enter. Despite a polite request for an explanation, I was met with nothing….dead, hurtful, death-tolling silence. How could these friends be quick to criticize and abandon when the going is hard on my end when I have never abandoned them at any point? I suppose at some point they chose to sit in judgment of me….the hypocrisy is yours, Lord to discern, but I know it for what it is. Abandonment of a friend in the worst times is nothing more than cowardice…yeah they run, seeking cowardice instead of the Christian promise they carry like a shawl for all the world to see. Time proves us all to be dreamers to some extent I suppose. Perhaps we are fools in the same breath. I had dreamed that all the love and friendship I had shown my friends of both recent years and of long times gone by would carry us though. Ahhh….the fair weather friend who has shown herself in her most unbecoming colors. Nevermind, indeed, the mere way in which I would put my own needs and concerns ahead of theirs, jumping in front of obstacles, tossing myself in front of speeding bullets, reminding them that they were my dearest friends. I would do it again, yet i daresay they would not and that….well that may say it all. Thank you God, that I have emerged unscathed with mere hurts of the heart, but not of the body. I have my truest…there truly is no bond like blood. Blood tells. Thank you to all of you who have been close to me during these awful times of late. We shall move forward and be strong. All prayers for those I am about to lose this Summer. All my energy must be with my Mama as she holds her son Jeff near during his final battle with the most formidable of enemies…cancer. He is, above all, a true Sons of Thunder Warrior. Despite those, Lord forgive the hypocrite, and recognize him/her and despite her hypocrisy, recognize her prayer. Do as you will, but allow us worship for the child of yours, who suffers most. Take care of my dearest blood and spare him further pain. He has known enough.
Posted on: Wed, 30 Jul 2014 02:19:08 +0000