I had such a great time yesterday with some great friends and family gathering at my home. I was blessed with the opportunity to see my cousin, whom I have not seen in 8 years and my aunt who I don’t see nearly enough but saw her most recently last October at my godson’s baptism.
I began to think back to where I was just 16 years ago to where I am today. Through many bad choices, wrong turns on my road to life, and an abandonment of the values I was taught growing up, God still blessed me in unimaginable ways and walked with me down my broken road that was leading to a bridge to nowhere to the amazing wonderful life I have today.
I think, if I had made just ONE choice differently, I would not be where I am today. I would not have the friends I have today, I would be, only God knows where, but how wonderful that He took me, someone so undeserving of His love and grace and still walked with me. HE made sure that I ended up here in Pine River, Wisconsin, married to my wonderful husband and with two amazingly handsome boys who both have a unique personality all their own.
Someone recently reminded me of the old Girl Scout song “Make new friends but keep the old, one is silver and the other gold.” She asked…”how long does it take to become gold?” It’s a question I have pondered for a few days now and really, I don’t think it has to take years for a new friend to become a golden friend. A bond can be established in a matter of an hour or a matter of years, but once a bond is established, sometimes it’s impossible to break that bond and therefore, I think it can sometimes only take an hour to move from silver to gold.
I had my first son 15 years ago this December. I had a large variety of friends whom I had established a bond with and whom I will always love and adore. But I made a decision to walk away from the life that I was living. If I had stayed in that area and environment, I believe very little in my life would have changed. It would have been difficult to break the chains of the old lifestyle I was living. I believe it is an Eagles’ song that says it best “that same old crowd was like a big dark cloud that we could never rise above”. Not to say the people that I chose to surround myself with were not good people, they were. Deep down they had pure hearts and some will be my true friends forever. Some I have lost touch with over the years and in the past year I have been reunited with a few who really truly now have proven they are some of the best friends I could ever ask for. Thank you Jon and Todd. You are my brothers for life.
Had I stayed there all those years ago, choosing to attempt to raise a child in that environment, I do believe I would have set myself up to fail at being a mom. I never would have met the amazing and wonderful people here that I know and love so dearly and cannot ever imagine living without.
It’s no lie when I started college, I knew no one. I lived in a one bedroom apartment two blocks from campus. I was about as alone as I had ever been in my life. My son’s father lived nearby but when I say I knew no one, that means I had no friends at the school, no one to hang out with, no girlfriends to confide in. I was 2.5 hours away from home and it felt extremely scary and lonely at times. But, I also had an excitement in me I had not felt in years. I was opening a new door to life, a door that led to my future. I didn’t know how I was going to do it, but I was going to succeed and I believe I did. With hard work, perseverance and although I wasn’t paying attention to notice Him, God was there every step of the way, bringing people into my life who would forever change it in many ways.
First there was L. She worked at the college and I can’t say that I ever gave her a reason to want to be my friend. I was hormonal, I was tired, I was overwhelmed and once my baby was born and I was back in school, there was little that I wanted to take up what little free time I had. Meer minutes each day. But she put all that behind her and strived to find out who I was and it helped also that she loved babies. Once I opened my eyes and decided to let someone in, we became fast friends. She is the person who gets the credit for me meeting my husband. (Some days I’m still a little mad at her for that. J ). What if I had listened to all the people who told me I couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t be able to handle a baby and school….what if I had believed them? I would have never met her.
Then it turned out I would have two neighbors in my low income apartment building, one on each side, who would become two friends who will always be considered some of my very best friends even though one now lives 3 hours away and the other states away down in Oklahoma. The three of us could not have been different, but we shared a bond that was like none I had ever known before in my life. We were all single mothers and we all were committed to helping one another in any situation. I do not see or talk to them often, but they hold a place in my heart that will never be vacant. When we see each other, it’s like no time had passed and we pick up right where we left off.
There were many friends over the years as I established my life and finished up school. Some would come and then go, only in my life for a short period of time and I can’t say I know where they ended up. Some, I have voluntarily chosen to remove from my life because, well, you will meet some people in your life who just absolutely do not want to see you succeed because it may make them look less important, less ambitious, less amazing. If only they would see their true beauty we all have and believe in themselves….because we all have something to offer and we all have things we wish we could do away with. It makes us human, but when you meet someone who just can’t do that, well, I guess I knew it was better to let them go, rather than lose all I had worked so hard for.
What if I never went to college? I would have never met so many of my former co-workers who came to be such good friends at the jobs I had after college. Jen, Tara. Or what if I did not decide to stay home with Lane rather than go back to work fulltime. Would I have met Cori?
What if I didn’t have an unhealthy addiction to Farmville for a little over a year…certainly, Deb and I would have never crossed paths and had the laughs and the cries that we have had together. One little decision to open up a facebook game. What some thought of as ridiculous, a total time waster, stupid…I met a great friend who actually did not live just that far from me….and now we text, visit, and have so many things in common from our love of reading to worrying about our sons, whom one day we will have to say good bye to and let them spread their wings and fly.
But in the last year, it is when all the people in my life would be put to a test neither they, nor I asked for. A situation happened in my life and it cut me deep to the core. I was in the midst of a crisis of faith that I was not sure I was going to overcome. My entire world was turned upside down and I felt like all the hard work I did over the last 14 years was for nothing. Then it turned to, beating myself up for all the things I must have done wrong, some real and some completely fabricated in my mind because well, how could I have gotten HERE if I had not done THAT. My husband has stood by me unwaivering in his love, and support even when it was not easy to love and support me. It seemed for months, every time I turned around God was handing me another blow to the side of the head with a baseball bat. And I started to wonder if He really cared.
Aside from my husband, there were friends, some not even really close friends yet, who, saw me struggling. Saw me starting to question all that I had believed in and they were not about to allow me to lose my faith. A faith, which was going to be the only thing that held me up in the coming days, months, year, and year and a half thus far. In the past year and a half, I have not always been an easy friend to have. Yet these dedicated women made it their goal to keep me on the path I needed to remain on. We started Bible studies and I was able to ask question after question as to what God was really asking of me. What did He expect from this situation and how do I fix it? And why is He doing this to me? And if this is His way of blessing me…please, could He just stop already.
I have also lost some friends this past year and a half. It is amazing how quickly you will see friends go the other way when they realize you have nothing left to offer them because you can’t hardly help yourself. Not only was my spiritual life ailing, but my health was as well. Meniere’s does not handle stress well at all. I found I had nothing left to give anyone. Nothing left to offer by the way of encouragement, love, support, anything. For one of the first times in my life, I wanted someone to come running to me and to save me rather than the other way around. And I was mad, I was mad at God for taking away all that I had worked so hard for, that I changed my life for.
I can pick out two friends in particular who refused to allow me to fall by the wayside, turn to old ways, to just give up on God and all that He has to offer. These two friends gave me more love and support in the last year than I think I have known ever or ever deserved. Some days it was just a card in the mail with a stick of gum saying…you are a great person and I’m lucky to know you that reminded me that life is worth it today. Other days it was a Thursday evening dinner and then a heartfelt talk that ended with me crying and asking but Why, why did this happen. And she, not trying to give me a load of fluff but saying, I don’t know why this is happening, but I will be here for you and I will believe in God on the days that you can’t. When I was angry with God, neither of them judged me, they never scolded me for the things I said, or the feelings I felt. Sometimes they said nothing at all. Some days I found that frustrating but then when I really looked at the situation, what really is there to even say? It took a tragedy, an ongoing battle, for me to see the value in these two beautiful women, whom I would have never met, had I made just one different decision in my life that took me somewhere else.
The story doesn’t end there…….what I have learned about friendships and family over the last year has been immeasurable, and about people period….
If I didn’t have Meniere’s Disease, I would not ever have been blessed with meeting Madeline, a beautiful English woman and her husband Danny, who together have an amazing family. I would have never met their daughter Abbey, who has shown me what it means to stand tall with a strength unknown to most humans under the most unfair circumstances. So I really should say THANK YOU GOD for giving me this dreaded, hidden illness that no one understands and makes my life so unpredictable, because without it, I would have never met these wonderful people who have taught me much needed lessons. And let me tell you, I love them with all my heart even if they are a clan of dang bleeding heart liberals. J They mean the world to me.
If I had decided to go to one more church on my journey of finding my “church home”, or if I just simply passed on WCC, I would have never met Julie. Who is like a breath of fresh air every Sunday morning with her great big smile and bright eyes as she comes to hug me each week. I do not know Julie’s last name, nor she mine, and I have no idea where she lives, or what she does, but every Sunday morning that hug is so loving and genuine that I can’t imagine my life anymore without that one little gesture of kindness out of her. She probably has no idea what a difference she has made in my life just by being kind and noticing me one Sunday morning and introducing herself.
Or what if my husband and I chose to look at more houses rather than just buying this one, the first one we both toured together. THE FRIENDS I would have missed out on…The Johnsons, The Christiansens, The Kosut’s and then the Koch’s.
My troubles of the past year are not over, and there does not seem to be a light shining anywhere near me to signal the end of the tunnel. But when I start to really look hard at the hidden blessings God has bestowed upon me, I can’t help but to say THANK YOU LORD. Thank you for opening my eyes to the wonders around me that I was totally missing.
First it is only through He that sustains me. It is through His love and grace that I can get up in the morning and smile and thank Him for another beautiful day, another chance to try and get it right. Because of Him, every morning I will continue to thank Him for the beauty I see when I open my eyes and see my son sleeping, my husband sleeping, and the sun coming up over the trees.
I have done so many things for God to turn His back on me, to say, you are a hopeless cause, you’re worthless, not worth My time or effort Rebecca. But instead, He never ceased to walk next to me, He allowed me to make the mistakes I did, to do the things I will forever regret and am sorry for. And even all the times I tried to walk away from Him, He continued to give me friends who would somehow, whether they tried to or not, lead me back to a life that is really something to be proud of.
Saturday morning, I sat with a new friend and over coffee we just talked about our lives. And it’s amazing how close to her I feel already. And while I do not cry often, I felt comfortable enough to share with her a little bit about what has gone on in my life over the past year and a half and it’s something I can’t discuss always without shedding tears. I know that in the end, God will reveal the reasoning behind it all and it will be for good, but right now, it still hurts. It takes me sometimes months to become that close or trusting of someone. But she just made me feel comfortable enough to know that she was now and was going to be my friend. I am so blessed.
You will never hear me judge another person’s heart, feelings, or actions. I have done it all, and I have no room. The saying does go…People who live in glass houses…. I can’t throw any stones. Because then all the stones should be thrown back at me.
I am so blessed to have weathered the storms to get where I am now. I am so blessed that God never gave up on me. And that when I felt as far from Him as I possibly could, He put the people in place who would help me to feel that connected feeling again.
I am not sure if the ladies who I laugh with on Friday nights around a campfire, or email with occasionally to catch up from months gone by, or who come to dinner and Bible Study, the ladies who drink with me when I need to relax, argue politics with me when I’m feeling feisty, the ladies who just leave me alone when I need a day to process know how much of a difference they make in my life. The girlfriends from high school with whom I had lost touch, who reconnected and now daily stay in contact and rekindled that flame of friendship that the fates could not blow out and even the high school girls who were not necessarily my friends then, but are now.
And it’s not just girlfriends. I have met some pretty great guy friends along the way as well, they threaten to beat up someone when that is all I want to happen, even though we know they won’t. It’s just nice to hear. They give me the guy’s perspective on life and they remind me what a great person and mother I am. And they make me laugh. Boy do they make me laugh. Laughing is my favorite thing in the whole wide world and the friends both male and female who make me laugh…oh man, you are never able to go anywhere.
Yeah, when I look at all the forks in the road and the path that I took, when it looked like I made a wrong turn, I know, I know today that I didn’t. Every turn made was to bring me right here. And I could never be more thankful for the people the Lord has chosen to enter into my life. I hope you will all stay forever. And I hope that God finds a way to use me to bless all of your lives as well.
It’s a great day to be alive! And I am eager to see where the next fork in the road will lead me, and I know that I have great friends and a God who will walk with me every step of the way. Hilly or rocky, muddy or clear, you all have blessed my life in ways I could never fully express. Thank you.
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