My Best Friend. . .

I can be so terrible to my best friend.  I hate to admit it but I take my best friend for granted.  My best friend is extremely loyal to me, offers the best advice and when I'm doing wrong he lets me know and tries to set me straight.  He's always there for me but sometimes, I am not always there for him.  I hate that about me.  Sometimes when he's told me something about me that needs to change, I get mad at him and can go days or weeks sometimes without even speaking to him.  It's real bad because I run into him ALL the time.  He lives with me so it's even worse when I am cold to him.  Then after awhile I'll speak to him again and acknowledge that he was right and I was wrong and that I am sorry.  I ask for his forgiveness and he gives it to me. 

Even though he lives with me, he does have his own place.  He invites me every week to go hang out at his place one day a week.  I usually go but have missed a few times.  I know I should go.  It's always a great time.  He invites a lot of people and I feel sorry because sometimes the people he really wants there don't show up but it's a good time anyway!  We crank that music up, sing some great songs,  talk to each other and listen when someone has something real important to say.  I always love going it's just sometimes I have other things I want to do. 

There are days I ignore my best friend.  I will say "Hi" in the morning and talk about how thankful I am for our relationship or skip that and just talk about what I would like help with throughout the day. At lunch we get back together and I am thankful for the lunch he provided but then I'm back to my day. Some days I sit and read a little bit of his book but not everyday. He wrote this book and although I've read it all the way through, I can't remember every detail.  Sometimes he'll say something and I know it's from his book and I'll act like I know what chapter it came from but I really don't.  He encourages me to read it every day so I can have some of his best advice memorized but I skip some days. 

Sometimes I have a very long list of things I want him to do for me.  Since he lives with me, I have some things I want him to do or pitch in.  Sometimes he does them but more times than not he has his own ideas of what needs to happen around here.  He'll give me a list of things he wants me to do!  Sometimes they don't make sense at all.  We've got our own bills to pay and he asks me to give money to help with his place!  Every time I have given money to help him with his place, he repays me back more than I ever gave.  But sometimes I just don't help him with his place.  I feel bad about it but things are sometimes just too tight.

Sometimes I let others and things take up the time I should be using with my bestie. Like sometimes I seem more excited at a basketball and football games and more happy with others than I am with him. Sometimes I spend way too much time watching tv, playing games, and hanging out with others, when I should be calling on my friend.  And when the kids came, I should have had my best friend help me more with the kids. My best friend had a son. He died a horrible death at the age of 32 but my friend is full of peace and love and still talks about his son lovingly! My husband and I tried to raise our kids on our own.   We'd take them once a week over to his place and he'd have an occasional meal with us that we thanked him for but I see now we could have done more to let him help us, he did have a son of his own he looked after.

My school doesn't like it when I talk about my best friend but I find ways to at least teach them some of the lessons I've learned from him.  I can't give him credit for those things at school but some of my students know him and have hung out at his house too so they kind of know where my influence is coming from. I kind of hope the students will invite their friends to meet him at his house. 

Just yesterday was my best friend's son's birthday!  Even though he died long ago, people still get together to remember him.  We exchange gifts on his birthday with family and friends and have a great feast of food.  It's not a sad thing remembering him.  It's a very happy celebration of life! 

I don't want to "name drop" here so if you don't know by my description who my best friend is, I'd love to introduce  you to him.  Just ask me and I'll get you acquainted with Him. 

His Presents!

Merry Christmas!  Christmas will be here before we know it and most of us have some presents already wrapped up in anticipation for the day!  Jesus's Birthday party is a highly anticipated event even to those who don't even know Him.  Everyone loves a party and so even those who don't know Jesus have been crashing his birthday party for years!  Leaving quite a few Christians concerned that we have lost the true meaning of Christmas.  Christians try to turn attention to "Jesus is the Reason for the Season" which is so true!  We start talking about "God's presence being more important than the presents under the tree."  But this morning I felt overwhelmed not with his presence but with His presents. 

God placed on my heart this morning that Christmas is Jesus's birthday and the presents are apart of this celebration.  We may over emphasize and over spend on gifts but presents have always been a part of Christmas!  Because God himself gave us Jesus on Christmas and the wise men so humbly followed the star and brought gifts to Jesus on the day He was born.  Presents and gifts are a part of the story but they are not the major emphasis of the story!  The main emphasis should be on Jesus, the life he lived, and how He died on the cross for our sins and rose agains! 

This morning I woke up a little tired and a little cranky.  I found myself feeling convicted to write.  I thought I'd write what I jotted down in a notebook yesterday but instead God led me to this passage in

James 2:4 " When troubles come your way consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow.  So let it grow, for when your endurance is "fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing"

 and then I was directed to

Galations 5:22 "The holy spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control." 

Immediately I began to think of these fruits as "His presents" that he has for me but I have to wait.  Just like my children see the presents under the tree but they must go through each day, finish school up and wait for Christmas Eve when they can open their presents.  There is great joy each day in the anticipation of opening those gifts despite not being able to open them now.  There is still pleading of "please can I just open one" but it is not yet time.  And I ask God the same thing!  I see the gifts of his fruit and I want nothing more to open that present but I have to wait and endure these hard times we are going through now.  No one but us and God knows what we are going through and it's hard and all I want to say is "Can I just have one present now. If you just give me one present now. I'll be good for the rest of the time."  And God said to me, "Through these trials my dear, there has been a present I have told you that you could have but you don't think it's useful until you get through all of this. But it is the one thing that will get you through.  Your troubles have given you an opportunity to open up the great gift of "Joy" but you have yet to open it up. If you want to open up one present now, it needs to be this one." 

And so I opened that present this morning and it's not a useless gift.  I feel such a joy in me today that I haven't had in a long time. I've had the gift of joy before but honestly, I think I lost it in the move!  However, I know there will be days where I have to make myself use this gift.  It won't come as easily as it does today but I won't let the new wear off this gift.  It's too great of a gift to just forget about or lose.  And I wait with great anticipation to open up not the presents under the Christmas tree but "His presents" that I know will come if I take the Joy He has given me and walk through these difficuties in His presence!