Lessons

The sun is out today and my spirits are lifted.  I went through a really rough week last week extremely down.  Everything irritated me and upset me. I was tired and lacking motivation or energy to do anything.  A little bit of a depressed slump there for me.  Today as I bask in the sun, I'm trying to isolate what brought me down.  I think I've been having a little pity party, is what I think my problem is. 

I'm a veteran military wife.  At that phase of life when we moved constantly, friends would come and go and I was used to that.  I was used to unplugging from people and moving on.  I was used to only investing so much into the lives of others, but not too much.  Investing only enough to where the detachment process didn't hurt too badly.  I'm not in that phase of life anymore, and my brain seems to have caught wind of that.  Since we've been out of the military, I've let my guard down.  Michael and I have began investing 100% into the lives of those who are brought into our orbit.  We have been living our lives as though we'll have the same friends for eternity.  But for the past few years, the ones we have invested heavily in and loved deeply have ended up moving away!  And this has nothing to do with the military!  It's just where life is taking our friends.

Some dear friends who we've only known since August of last year (yet we feel like we've known them our whole lives!) told us on Monday that they are moving.  Back to Arkansas, no doubt.  Michael even got teary about the situation because this is the first friend he's ever invested in who is now leaving him.  I think I've been battling all week with God about why He keeps doing this to me!  Why does He keep taking my friends away from me?  If I were to sit back and count the number of friends who have been impactful in my life and then moved away, it would overwhelm me.  So, not gonna do that!   But the number is great.  Apparently, God thinks I am a person who can handle that.  Apparently God thinks He created me to be a person who can handle that.  From what I've learned about God...He knows best. 

I'm not to stop investing my whole heart into people.  And neither are you.  We can't look at it from an earthly perspective.  Sure, my friends are ALL over the world, and there are many who I may never see again this side of eternity.  But that's the point...I will have eternity with them because I have invested my heart into them.  The way we treat people and love people is an eternal attribute.  Jesus was only on earth for a short while and He invested everything He had.  I know how it must have hurt His heart to leave His friends, but He invested for eternity. 

It's no coincidence that my children's church lesson for this week is about Jesus calling His 12 disciples.  Here's an excerpt from my lesson, "The task of the disciple was to learn all he could from his teacher in order to pass the information on to others.  The disciples left their mark in history because of their willingness to follow Jesus.  How will history record your willingness to do the same?"  I'm a disciple.  I teach, I invest, I love, and I send out so the Good News of Christ will be spread.  Pity party ends here...because it's NOT all about me.  Unfortunately it took me a week to learn that lesson this time.  You'd think I'd be better about learning lessons, but I'm still hard headed.