It’s not easy putting it all out there, and Lord knows it’s often better to stuff it all down and pretend like everything is fine.  But sometimes, maybe giving voice to an issue in your heart is the greatest medicine. If you know anything about me, you know that I had a tumultuous childhood.  A lot of moving, a lot of instability – and I know that my parents did the best they could – but I went to three different high schools – the last being when I was 17.  A junior.  When everyone had established their friendships and grown up together.  I was coming in at the end.  Thankfully college came soon after, and thank God for it because it was just transient enough that I had the opportunity to meet lots of different kinds of people.  I was no longer the outsider.  And really, that’s what college was about for me – despite spending 90% of my time in the theatre building, I was blessed to have friendships of every kind, because everyone was beginning again.  I still call some of those people my oldest and dearest friends.  And, if you really are blessed with those old friendships, you can pick right back up from where you left off.  As my dear friend and kindred spirit Michelle reminds me, we shouldn’t be “hustling” our relationships all the time.  At some point, we have to stop working so hard and just be ourselves and trust that those people we call friends really and truly do want to spend time with us. And I think she hit the nail on the head.  I wonder, if because I had such instability in my childhood and teenage years that I just don’t feel like I deserve to have rich friendships with women.  Maybe, sub-consciously, my 14 year old self is telling me not to get too close.  Maybe it’s an issue of self-protection?  I have an amazing husband who tells me every day what a gift I am to him.  I love that I live with my greatest fan, and whenever I need that pep talk he is more than ready to give it to me.  But I find when it comes to the topic of women friendships – it’s just so much more complicated, isn’t it? I’m in the middle of reading Beth Moore’s “So Long, Insecurity” (HIGHLY recommend, by the way) and I highlighted one sentence in particular: “[Rejection is] insecurity with a serious fever.” Oooh.  Ever been there?  Have you ever fretted over something you’ve said, or wrote, so much so that it kept you up at night?  Have you ever had too many drinks and wanted to call an old friend just to tell them you miss them more than they could possibly know, and then not remember what you said the next day, terrified you made a total fool out of yourself?  Have you ever “hustled” a relationship?  Really and truly worked hard at getting someone to like you? Oh, friends.  I have done all of these things, many times. And Facebook?  You know where I’m going with this – how many times have your feelings been hurt because you weren’t invited/weren’t asked/weren’t approached/weren’t included?  I think we can all relate to that one. I feel like sometimes I mourn the fact I don’t have that one “go-to” friend – like just one person needs to fill all of those needs – because instead I have many different friends who fill all kinds of different roles in my life – and maybe I just need to recognize how wonderful that is in its own right.  Because who loves it when I’m mired in defeat – convinced that no one really wants to spend time with me or feels I bring something fabulous to the party?  One guess. The devil rejoices in it.  He loves that I can’t find my way out of this muck.  He relishes in those feelings of rejection and feeds them – gives them life, gives them a name.  James 1:16-18 says, “Don’t be misled, my dear brothers and sisters.  Whatever is good and perfect comes down to us from God the Father, who created all the lights in the heavens.  He never changes or casts a shifting shadow.  He chose to give birth to us by giving us his true word.  And we, out of all creation, became His prized possession.” Oh, to truly and completely believe this and live it out in my life!  To have freedom – to know that I am fearfully and wonderfully made and that there is someone who thinks I bring many, many fabulous things to the party.  In fact, He thinks I’m so precious that He’s planning a party for me when it’s my time to leave this world.  A royal soiree, given by the sovereign King.  Thrown for me, His greatest and most beloved creation. Why, when I have such unbelievable power above me, am I still prey to such darkness?  I must know, deep inside, that this kind of decay is not of my Heavenly Father?  And so I will try to put this burden down each and every day.  When I’m feeling lonely, or sad, or rejected – or simply unloved.  Because the TRUTH of my life is that all of those things are LIES.  And so I challenge all of you who struggle with similar feelings – you are not alone.  I’m right there with you.  And the best thing that we can do is to recognize the lies and live in the truth of our great God’s loving embrace.  Because He is Good.  He is Loving.  He will always have a place for you at His table. He is your greatest fan, and friend – if you’ll let Him be.