In Time….This is The End

Oh brother I can’t, I can’t get through
I’ve been trying hard to reach you, cause I don’t know what to do
Oh brother I can’t believe it’s true
I’m so scared about the future and I wanna talk to you
Oh I wanna talk to you

– “Talk” by Coldplay

As I’ve grown older, my relationships with my friends have become one of the most important thing in my life. I didn’t have very many close friends growing up. I had a few but they didn’t last long or I was in part of a bigger group but never had a best friend like others did. Now as I’ve reached 30, I’ve found that I’d rather have a smaller group of very close friends that I can grow with in life as we all share experiences together. And one of the hardest thing about this is when one of those friends decides that they want the friendship to be over, and you aren’t ready for it.

It’s extremely tough and painful to accept the fact of when a friendship is over. It can be akin to a breakup but I think that losing a friendship is even worse. Boyfriends/girlfriends come and go, heck husbands and wives sometimes even. But losing a good and very close friend is harder because when you’ve built up that relationship, they can be very difficult to replace. And you may not even want to replace them…we’re not back in middle school anymore trading friends in cliques.

The worst feeling I think is that it can feel like all the years of your friendship now feel like a waste. Sure, you have good memories. Yes there were happy times. But when the friendship just dies, it feels like all the time, energy, effort…everything you put into the relationship feels like it was a waste. Especially when you can’t figure out what you did wrong.  If you had closure then you could put it behind you and walk away. But when you don’t know, it hurts. Instead of answers, you’re just left with silence. And sometimes you didn’t do anything wrong at all.There are some people who just aren’t good with closing things out. They don’t want to deal with messy so they just disappear and hope that you will eventually get the hint. It sucks like hell when that happens in a breakup, but when it happens in a friendship, it can be even worse. When your repeated attempts to figure out what happened don’t get reciprocated, you’re left with the feeling that the other person didn’t care as much as you did.

Sometimes you won’t ever get that closure. And you have to deal with it and move on. For me, lots of prayer has been and will continue to take place. I feel like there’s an empty spot in my life/heart right now. Not to sound all “Christian-y” but I know that God will fill it back soon. Whether that’s with other things, other people, or even God himself, I know that the gap in my heart won’t stay open and vulnerable forever. I wonder sometimes why God brings people into our lives only to take them away because it seems like it was a waste of time on everyone’s part. But ultimately God has his reasons and even though I don’t know why all this happened this way, someday I know I will understand.

I love how God directs me to what he wants me to know are his words that I need to read. I found this passage in Psalms one day during a particularly rough day. I have probably read it many times before and just glanced over it. But on that day, God knew that I needed to read it and all of a sudden it described exactly how I felt. I cannot tell you how perfectly this passage fit me at the time. I remember crying when I read it because it was as if David had written the passage about me. However, it was also comforting in the fact that I knew God had led me to read this. And then it gave me hope as well as to what to place my faith and trust in.

Psalm 55: 1-2, 4-8, 12-17, 20-22; 23b

Listen to my prayer, O God,
do not ignore my plea;
hear me and answer me.
My thoughts trouble me
and I am distraught

My heart is in anguish within me;
the terrors of death have fallen on me.
Fear and trembling have beset me;
horror has overwhelmed me.
I said, “Oh, that I had the wings of a dove!
I would fly away and be at rest.
I would flee far away
and stay in the desert
I would hurry to my place of shelter,
far from the tempest and storm.”

If an enemy were insulting me,
I could endure it;
if a foe were rising against me,
I could hide.
But it is you, a man like myself,
my companion, my close friend,
with whom I once enjoyed sweet fellowship
at the house of God,
as we walked about
among the worshipers.

As for me, I call to God,
and the Lord saves me.
Evening, morning and noon
I cry out in distress,
and he hears my voice.

My companion attacks his friends;
he violates his covenant.
His talk is smooth as butter,
yet war is in his heart;
his words are more soothing than oil,
yet they are drawn swords.

Cast your cares on the Lord
and he will sustain you;
he will never let
the righteous be shaken.

But as for me, I trust in you.

Truth be told, I don’t know what will happen next. Perhaps God has closed the door on this friendship for good. Or maybe it’s just for a season now where we’re not going to be friends. I don’t know. There’s a lot of letting go, waiting, and trusting in God that’s going to have to be done here. Sound familiar? I think that’s been the main theme of this blog…and my rebooted life.

Slightly topical, here’s another excellent article from Relevant, this time about when a friendship is draining and what are signs that you should be looking for to see if you need to end it.

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