I love days like today when God is so obvious. This morning I held an ACTS small group at my house (this is prayer group of women of all ages who have been on an ACTS retreat – Adoration, Community, Theology and Service) and it turned out to be very small with just a few of us gathering to talk about how we felt the spirit moving in our lives and what area of our lives we felt lacking in faith. I am a huge advocate for coming together as a community and being able to express our concerns, sorrows, frustrations as well as our joys and blessings.
Today we had a member come that I’ve known for awhile but this was her first time to this particular prayer group. Even though it was small we all shared with abandon, being honest about our struggles and encouraging one another. One issue that was brought up by more than one member of the group was the desire to have friends. This went into a lengthy discussion about all of our insecurities and how at times we want to call certain people but we are afraid they’ll be ‘too busy’ for us or maybe already have enough friends. You would think this issue would go away after high school but we had a member in her 60’s struggling with this as well! It goes back to our insecurities…where do they begin…why do we have them…what are we truly afraid of? What is the most interesting to me is realizing that when one person is wanting to reach out to be friends with another most likely the other person is feeling the same way but both insecurities collide and neither step up to instigate what could be a truly beautiful friendship. And for those that fear that someone else has ‘enough’ friends, who is it for us to decide who has ‘enough’ or ‘more than’? What if that one person is surrounded by a large group of great people but could still be blessed to have a particular friendship with YOU? We are all made to compliment one another with our gifts and talents so let’s not keep them to ourselves out of fear…
At any rate I decided to reach out to one member in particular that seemed most in need of a friend and asked her to lunch. She readily accepted and we ended up having a great meal together and it was very cool to see how much we had in common. I know I can never have enough friends…bring them on!!! 😉
Go call someone you haven’t talked to in a while…or better yet, go call the person you’ve always been interested in getting to know and put the first foot out there to make it happen. God is obviously placing it on your heart to do so. Don’t miss out on how blessed you could be!
Blessings
Shannon