I'm a big kid now

I had a friend ask me the other day when I was going to grow up. (The question was also directed at our husbands.) My answer was something along the line of I don't ever want to totally "grow up".

After I married Jon I spent a lot of the time feeling like I was still a kid. We married young. We had babies young. We worked at a church that was mostly older people and I have to say I spent most of my time feeling like I was looked down on. Here I am now, a good 10 years later, and it's getting better, but I don't know if I will ever totally feel like an adult.

When I was a young newlywed and young mother all I wanted was to be looked on as an adult. Now as a mother who's oldest child is about to enter double digits I just want to be adult enough to deal with my responsibilities well and still be "young" enough to enjoy the ride. I want to be able to enjoy my husband, children, and life in general.

Unfortunately, the growing up part of life can be painful. I am having to deal with one aspect of this right now. I have, because of some bruising and battering of my heart, wrapped my heart in cotton (bubble wrap, styrofoam, etc.). I had made the decision that if I kept my heart put away and protected it couldn't hurt. God informed me that He has other ideas about that today.

I was hurt by some really close friends. (I'm pretty sure I have mentioned my friendship issues before. I don't make friends easily and I don't trust 'em easily either.) I am not saying that they were malicious or set out to hurt me - I just got hurt - you can't really help what brings you joy or what brings you pain. So, anyway, I made the decision to back away from them. I figured if I didn't hang out with them I wouldn't have the hurt or risk being hurt some more.

I realized today that I can't just walk away from them.

I want to. I want to run as fast and as far away as possible. I don't want to put myself out there. I don't want to risk my heart getting more bruised or battered. I will though.

As I sat in church today I had the most overwhelming feeling that I have to talk to them. I don't know if I can explain it. The feeling is like your heart is being squeezed tight and there is this weight... (These friends have been hurting. In lots of ways. It makes me want to cry if I think about it too much.) I knew that I was going to have to do something. I knew I had to tell Jon that I was going to have to do something.

I wasn't really looking forward to that. See, Jon has had to deal with his own struggles regarding these friends. One result being he would get really worried about me whenever I would have any kind of contact with them.

So I tell Jon in the car after church that I just really, really feel like I need to make that phone call. Jon looks at me and tells me "I really had Friend 1 on my heart in the service." He follows that up with "I've been thinking about Friend 1 for the past couple of weeks."

It's awesome to see the way God works. He's been working on both of us, getting us to this point where we can hopefully love on the both of them.

I might get hurt. There maybe tears. Or I might find my friends again. I might be able to love on them. That's the thing about hearts - you hide them away you might not experience the hurt, but you also miss out on the good stuff - love, laughter and friendship.