Friends, Pong, and Tea Parties

5-?-11

Okay, so I think I’ve figured out how to do this. So much has happened this past week that there’s no way that I can talk about it all. Therefore, I’m going to hit some of the big things that happened, definitely not all because that would be impossible. The first major highlight was finding out that I’m related to one of my very best friends. One of her father’s cousins passed away and the funeral was held at my home church. Her father’s cousin turned out to also be my father’s cousin. It was so awesome finding out that I’m related to such an awesome person. I was surprised, though, by how happy my friend was to find out we’re related. See, I have a strong inferiority complex. Her excitement when she told me puzzled me, but it also started to correct the skewed image I have of myself. I don’t know if I’ve just healed to the point that I can start to accept the good things my friends say about me or if God chose this particular friend to break through the lies I believe about myself. Instead of arguing with her when she says something that contradicts the lies, I find that I can’t honestly believe the lies when she contradicts them. My arguments get stuck in my throat and the voices in my head that used to scream the lies louder when challenged are silenced. I have much more to say about this amazing friend of mine, but I’m saving it for a whole post of its own.

Another highlight, though not as cool, was playing the Atari for the very first time. I played Pong! I’ve wanted to try Pong for a long time because it’s like the very beginning of video games. I expected it to be super easy, I mean how hard can batting a dot back and forth be? I was greatly mistaken. Pong is a very simple game but it challenged me. The little line I controlled to hit the dot moved much slower than the dot did and the dot would bounce off the sides of the screen in unpredictable ways. I had to focus on prediction and reaction time. The game wasn’t really hard, but the simplicity, complexity, and addictiveness of it impressed me. I would definitely play it again and not just because of its historical value.

Another one of my awesome friends decided to have a tea party before she left for her mission trip. We had hot tea, cold tea, and strawberry lemonade. The menu included enchilada soup, cookies, cake, donuts, cinnamon rolls, and dessert. My friend wanted our time together as a group to be meaningful and constructive. One really cool thing we did was make blue jean bracelets. She passed out strips of denim material and we wrote on our strip a goal that we had for this summer, something we wanted to be lifted up in prayer. On mine I wrote “Learn how to use my past to share God with others.” After writing our goal we put our denim strips in a bowl and mixed them up. We then drew at random a strip that wasn’t our own, twisted it, and tied it on our wrist as a bracelet. The bracelet would remind us to pray for one another, particularly the person whose strip we drew. We wrote down that person’s goal so we could remember it and pray for that person to reach her goal. I think it’s an awesome way for us to lift each other up in Christ. After that, our friend decided to wash our feet. Washing feet is an imitation of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples. It symbolizes love, humility, and the cleansing of sins. As she came around to each one of us, she prayed for us individually. When she came to me she thanked God for my humor and how I can always make her laugh. That touched me because I love to make people laugh. Seeing someone smile and laugh is one of the most beautiful things on earth. At the same time I was a little sad because my friend led up to thanking God for my humor by saying that we haven’t had a lot of deep talks. I am a very deep person. I love to have deep talks, learn about my friends, and share my life with others. I could not live without going deep. Her comment made me really think about how much I open up to people and go deep with them. I realized that I haven’t really opened up to her or really any of the friends sitting there with me besides my roommate. I used to open up to other people, but lately I’d withdrawn and held people at arms length. Then I realized that I didn’t open up to them because I was too busy protecting myself from further harm. Though I’m a deep person, I was hurt on a very very deep level in my past. I was afraid to open up to my friends, afraid for them to see the real me. I may act like everything is fine and I’m doing great, but a lot of the time I’m not okay and I hurt terribly. I hide the hurt because a little voice in my mind tells me that if my friends really knew the real me, they’d leave, they’d hate me. I can’t explain why they would leave and why they would hate me. It’s an irrational thought and I’ve healed so much to even be able to recognize that as an irrational thought. Before this I hadn’t realized how high and thick my protective walls were. I let people only get so close to me. I don’t want that. I want to open up to people. I want to break down my walls and let people in, it’s just a really scary thing to do because once I let the walls down other people are free to either love me or hurt me. The love sounds wonderful, but the possibility of being hurt by one of my friends is an unbearable thought, and it’s happened before. Once you’re betrayed by someone close to you, someone you call a friend, it’s hard to make yourself vulnerable to another person who could do the same if he/she wanted.

I was so glad that God showed me this about myself. He chose to show me through a friend’s prayer. I have a lot of respect and admiration for this particular friend. She does and says a lot of funny things and that’s awesome and I love that about her. The big thing, however, is her humility and great desire to reflect Jesus. She is a woman who has taken her heart and handed it wholly to Jesus. She is a great example of faith and reliance on God. One of the things that really impress me is her resolve and boldness to say what’s on her heart and to share God with everyone she meets. God is not just the big guy upstairs or a God that we just pay attention to on Sunday to her. God touches every part of her life and she’s acutely aware of it. She runs with all her might towards God and I think that’s beyond awesome. She really encourages and challenges me to seek God in everything. I’m glad because everyone needs a friend that isn’t afraid to point them to the only One who can heal their every hurt and overcome every problem.

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-Jerelle