Ya-Ya

This week I talked with a friend about a movie that I recommended that she see. The Divine Secrets of the YA-YA Sisterhood is a story about women who have known each other all their lives and really KNOW each other. They love each other where they are and do what they can to be there for each other.

This is my 100th published post. There are many more that I have unpublished because they are too personal to be out there for all the world to see. Some have been shared with Len or Mel, two people who have never judged me for what I am thinking or feeling and allow me the luxury of baring a portion of my inner self without fear. Mel and I met in a YS chat room almost a year ago and I feel like I have known her forever. We skipped some steps in the getting to know you phase and went right to the nuts and bolts and being good supportive friends for each other. Len I met several years ago and he is one of the first people that had the patience to allow me time to learn to trust and taught me the meaning of learning to love someone where they are because as my friend that is what he did for me.

These two people I consider close friends. I have shared more with them then I have with anyone else. They have shared their lives with me too. In the movie the women retell the life of Vivian to her daughter Sidda, allowing her daughter to see another side of her Mom. Gaining a better perspective of who her Mom is.

I like the friend dynamic of this movie they bare their souls to each other, keep each others secrets, allow one another to be the crazy person that they are, and love one another unconditionally, They are not afraid to tell each other exactly how they see it. The truth can be told in love but with a firmness so that is heard. They are not afraid of loosing the friendships. They are not afraid of being judged or put in a proverbial box.

That kind of friendship requires a huge amount of trust. I wonder how many people have that sort of friend in their lives. The friend that watched the movie left me a message saying that she liked it and thought that their was a lesson in it for her. She looked at her own life and realized that she has different friends that know different pieces of her but there isn't any one person who knows all of her.

I am the same way. Different people know different pieces of me. Len and Mel know probably the most different aspects of me. If you put them in a room and they talked about me they would see there are some similarities but that each one has pieces that the other does not. After a fashion they would be wondering if they where talking about the same person. Even from these people who do not put me in a box and I feel so safe with I guard against.

Tonight we had a programming meeting about this coming Christmas. The worship pastor asked us if we had unlimited time and resources what would we want to do for Christmas. The ideas started popping out from the creative people around the table. All of our ideas focused on the few Sundays before Christmas, the Christmas eve, and Christmas day services. We had some great ideas and we had some not so great ideas.

Then the Pastor put a few ideas out there that where outside of the services. Things like baking pies and sending them out and a walk through Bethlehem. Different ways of out reach into the community. Those of us sitting around the table took the question and put it in a very small box. Pastor never said what sort of service would we like to see. His question was far broader the limits where placed on it by us the so called creative people who are suppose to think outside the box.

People do that with all aspects of their lives and we do it to other people to. I have several friends that I feel have me in a box. Some of the boxes are bigger and some of the boxes are so small I feel like I can't breathe . This is how they know me and they refuse to see me in any other context then the box that I have been placed.

I know that I have people in boxes it makes it easier to understand them. When they come out of the box I have placed them in I can get frustrated and annoyed because they are not acting or behaving in a manner I understand of them. I know that I do this and I try not to but it seems to be a habit that is hard to break.

After the messages back and forth about the Ya-YA Sisterhood with my friend I started to think about having a friend like that. A friendship without walls. How cool would that be to have someone in your life where you are loved no matter what. Where you can be who you are and how you feel. When the chips are down and life feels like it is falling apart they will be there. A real rock in your life that is constant and never changing. Some one who knows the deepest and darkest place. Some one who know EVERYTHING about you.

Then I realized I do have that. That friend presented himself to me when I was a small child and has ALWAYS been there. Never forsaken me and has made me a promise that he will always love me. That friend is Jesus.

Psalm 139
For the director of music. Of David. A psalm.
1 O LORD, you have searched me
and you know me.

2 You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.

3 You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.

4 Before a word is on my tongue
you know it completely, O LORD.

5 You hem me in —behind and before;
you have laid your hand upon me.

6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.

7 Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?

8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,

10 even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.

11 If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,"

12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.

13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.

14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.

How cool is that, the very thing I was searching for and I have had it all along.