Where on earth did my heart go?

What do you do, when you have someone in your life who is so unpleasant to you, that it feels difficult to even find within you a lean, towards getting along? Children often feel this way. Mother is unhappy with something they've done. She expresses it, and perhaps she administers a discipline. She says "Go to your room and do your homework. No TV today". Then, dinnertime, and mother invites the child back downstairs to join the rest of the family. How will most children feel? I guess it all depends on the disposition of the child. Me? I would have sulked and said "I don't want any dinner!"

Yep. Shit happens. Recently I was concerned about a good friend who was getting high all the time. Also a display of just total disgust with the way things seem to be panning out in life. And so, I'll get even with life! I'll do something which will harm my mind and body. I'm not trying to be sarcastic about it. Unfortunately, I know this formula too well.

Friends, I am addressing this now, because right now, this very evening, I have an individual who is getting on my nerves in the way I've described. I have a nurse tonight who has strong misconceptions about people with disabilites. And her whole demeanor is offensive to me. And so, it's a good thing I've kind of given myself the title "A True Friend", because by giving myself this title, I can ask myself when facing a difficulty: what does A True Friend do? It's a very simple question to answer regarding tonight's difficulty. I must find the strength within myself to be friendly and pleasant. More challenging, I must find the goodness inside my heart to pray a sincere prayer for her. That God will bless her. That she will have an enjoyable night of work. That God may give her wisdom concerning any issues in her personal life. Most important to me when I pray for someone, that God will help her feel happier inside. And I thank the Lord for turning around our relationship. I ask Him to fill my heart with positive feelings about her. I ask Him to help me love her unconditionally, as only He can help me to do.

And so, by loving in the hard times, I prove to those who are hard for me to love, that I mean business with Jesus. If possible, it would be great if those who find it hard to love me, could also find a way to do it. I know I have a way of pushing people away. I am so afraid of getting rejected that I try to create this sense about myself that I am not in need of any love. In my mind it kind of takes care of me and you. We all need Jesus, and He must need us, or why would He have created us? Anyways, good night all.

♬  Cheri Keaggy: What Matters Most

When all else fails, there is always someone who likes us

How many people have gotten angry with God before, or at least annoyed and frustrated? If you're honest, I bet every one of you would say you have. Now these stuffy-assed fundamentalist Christians will swear that "one must never EVER get mad a't God. God does everything perfectly". Well yes Pastor, we know that God does everything perfectluy, but why does His perfection not include what I want to see happen?

There are all kinds of reasons why people get mad at God. My mother had read much of the Bible. She felt that God was unfair. She had these questions: Why was Abel's sacrifice accepted, while Cain's was not? (Genesis 4:4-5) Why did God cause an "evil spirit from the Lord"; to fall upon Saul? (1 Samuel 16:14-15) Bottom line (as my Mom pondered) Why did God say "I will bless those who I will bless, and curse those who I will curse"? (unable to find this verse as I remember it). All of these are real parts of the Bible. And for many many years, my mom wouldn't come to Christ because of such things. But I am not bringing up any of these issues to refute them.

I bring up my mom in particular, because my mom was a woman with many, many friends. Wherever our family went throughout the years, she made friends who clung to her faithfully. Even as she got older, when the worldwide web came to be, people contacted her from all over the world. There were people who even remembered her from childhood.

What I'm trying to say is, at the point where our faith in God, or in ourselves weakens it is there that we end up appreciating the love of our friends. At the point where two or more people feel like saying "Yeah things suck! But 'Hail hail the gang's all here. What the hell do we care? What the hell do we care now?'" (old army song) For everything that comes to be, a need has to be there first. We have friends because we need friends and they need us. If we have a friend we know we can count on, are we thankful, or what? ت Friendship happens when our imperfections are overlooked by someone, and their imperfections are overlooked by us. They happen when love takes over.

  ♬ Jerry Reed: Alabama Jubilee

Straight Talk, Cuz I Been There

OK. It comes a certain point in life sometimes, where people don't care. They're afraid. And they cannot help. They get paralyzed with fear. They do not want to step in and care. I have been a wheelchair user since 1985. In 1986, things happened, and I was left alone in my apartment. No outgoing transportation. No support from any organization. No help with my physical care. Alone. I LOST MY MIND.

After a couple of weeks like this, I stopped getting in and out of bed. I sat in my living room chain smoking and hallucinating. I was living in an apartment complex. But no one checked on me. I tried going around in my neighborhood. But I was told to leave. I tried getting into a day treatment program. But I got excuses. These final few days, a fire could have started. I might have fallen out my chair. But never a knock on the door. Nobody wanted to get involved.

So I know. I know how cold people can be. I know that if I didn't care to live, few others would care either.

But I am here. I am here. And even though I am fully aware that I am my only friend this side of Heaven, I deal with it. I respect people even though I know how spineless they can be. I am committed to people, even though I have seen what they are capable of. Therefore, I would like to see you smile.

♬ Yolanda Adams: Just A Prayer Away

Thankful to be able to call Jesus my Friend!

♬ NYCYPCD: Hallelujah! I Have Found Him (also called Satisfied)

All my life I had a longing
For a drink from some clear spring,
That I hoped would quench the burning
Of the thirst I felt within.

Refrain:
Hallelujah! I have found Him
Whom my soul so long has craved!
Jesus satisfies my longings,
Through His blood I now am saved.

Feeding on the husks around me,
Till my strength was almost gone,
Longed my soul for something better,
Only still to hunger on.

Poor I was, and sought for riches,
Something that would satisfy,
But the dust I gathered round me
Only mocked my soul’s sad cry.

Well of water, ever springing,
Bread of life so rich and free,
Untold wealth that never faileth,
My Redeemer is to me.
--words by Clara T. Williams

Not taking the easy way out

Hello friends. I am going through a very very tough time in my personal life right now. This is why I have not been able to produce a blog. My friendship, and my ability to return friendship, all in all let me just say the longevity of my friendship, is being challenged to the max.

So how can relate this to describing and adding to what friendship is all about? Prayer is important. And we know that Jesus taught that persevering in prayer is important. Jesus gave us hope that if our prayers do not get answered right away, if we continue to ask, God may decide to grant us our request at some later date. (Luke 18:1-8)

Then again, what if you have a friend, and you're watching the whole world seem to turn against this person? You love this person, and you want to step in and help. But you are frightened. Stepping in means making a deeper commitment than you have ever made in your whole life. This, my friends, is what has now occurred in my life, and it's very very hard.

All this time as a true friend I have despised people who didn't have the courage to separate from the crowd in order to do what is right. For the first time, I am seeing how terribly difficult it can be.

In my previous blog, In the Position of Friend, I wrote a number of blogs about abstinence. I want to share a personal experience I had where choosing abstinence was a challenge. I was living in an apartment building where each floor had two apartments across from one another. For many months, the tenant of the apartment across from me was rarely there. Then, after she moved out, a young gentleman moved into the apartment. After a few nights, I suddenly became very sexually aroused. I had not met him, but for some reason that I didn't even understand, I was strongly aroused. Tempted. Very very tempted. This is how I finally got control of it: I told myself "Raya, you are being tempted to do something that is against everything you stand for. If you truly believe in what you say you believe, then you cannot consider sex with this man" When I told myself this, I was able to ignore all that my body was saying and get control of it.

This I shared now, because once again now, I am faced with a situation (though much different in a lot of ways) where I have to conduct myself according to what I believe in, and not what comes naturally.

A friend, and actually a relative needs my help very badly, and in order to be of help more is involved than just good advice or saying I love you. I have to produce a legal document, and I'm very scared.

So since I introduced today's blog by talking about prayer, at this point I want to ask for your prayers. Today I felt totally overwhelmed by the task before me. But it's something I want to do, and am required to do.

musical selection: Hair Broadway Musical: Easy to Be Hard

A Friend In Deed

Well well well ...if you found your way back to this blog, congratulations! And if you're coming across this blog for the first time, congratulations as well. My posts are sometimes more frequent, sometimes less. And for the past few weeks I've been in a whirlwind, if you know what I mean. Lots of issues and feelings unsettled. But I did have the inspiration to revamp my setup on here, and I changed slightly the URL. I felt as though wonderfulstayingfriends was kind of corny, so now, Always Your Friend is at thewonderoffriendship.blogspot.com.

And so, I have a topic I've been planning to write about, so why don't I dive right in? About 3 weeks ago, my phone charger busted because I was careless with it. I was trying to make my phone do things that an old, humble little phone is not set up to do, and I overdid it for three straight nights. Afterwards, my charger gave out, and my phone also, I could tell, was in jeopardy of not holding up too much longer. And so, I ordered a charger from Amazon, but when it came, it virtually didn't work as soon as I got it. So I spent days and days not being able to do any of the things I enjoy doing so much by going online with my little device. And every time I asked someone for help, I was either given an excuse, or by using the chargers various people loaned me, the condition of my phone worsened. Until, I ran into the Director of Respiratory here, and he showed compassion for me. It was so awesome! I went past his office, and so, I thought, it couldn't hurt to ask him for help. So I asked, and he checked to see if his charger would work with my phone. It did work. So I left my phone with him in his office, and after an hour or two he brought my phone back. FULLY CHARGED! I was so relieved. And so, the following day, I asked him, and once again, he said alright. When he had to leave, he said he thought he might have another one like it at home that he could give me to keep. My friends, that charger is what I'm using now. I can't tell you how relieved and how grateful I felt. And the interesting thing about all of this, is that this man fit exactly into the pattern laid out by Jesus Christ as he explained what is meant by "neighbor". It is the parable known as "The Good Samaritan".

Briefly, this is the story:
     A Jew was walking down the road, and some thieves came and beat him up and took all that he had. And left him laying on the road, wounded and bleeding. As he lay there, a Pharisee walked by, and he called out to him for help. But the Pharisee walked on the other side of the road and ignored him. A little while later, another walked down the road, and when the injured man cried out for help, he ignored him, and walked on the other side of the road. Then, a third person walked down the same road, but this man was a Samaritan, and at the time, Samaritans and Jews had no dealings with one another. Although this Samaritan had every reason to just keep walking, he had mercy on the man laying bleeding on the road. He went up to him, bound up his wounds, and even took him to the nearest Inn and arranged for him to stay there.

After Jesus told this parable he asked the crowd, "which one of these men was his neighbor to the man laying there?" They answered: the one who had mercy on him.

I want to point out why this parable comes to mind when thinking of our respiratory director. In times past, I had sort of given this man a hard time. I had said that I did not like the way he ran the respiratory department, and made some unfair accusations. It was kind of surprising that of all the people I asked for help, the one with the least reason to owe me anything, showed me compassion. And he showed it thoroughly, as the good Samaritan is described. Like the Samaritan took the man out of the road and walked him to an Inn, this man provided me with a charger I could have for myself. He didn't only handle the immediate problem, he took care of the future. And even, like it says it the parable that the Good Samaritan returned to the Inn after a couple days to make sure things were alright, and so John Jensen, that's his name, stopped in after a couple days to make sure the charger was still working.

And so, I was alone! There was no one to help! And someone went beyond what the crowd was doing, beyond what most people nowadays think is enough to do to be a good person. I really have to wonder what some people think entails being a good person. But sometimes you have to be careful because many people if they feel that something has caused them to fail at being a good person, they totally give up on it. Whatever the case, this is an example of me not giving up on finding help, and someone else that thinks of himself as here to do more than merely what is expected.

♬Voices of Praise: He Looked Beyond My Fault

Forgiving when it's hard

Well, I have been facing a number of rather huge difficulties lately. Let's just say a number of people who are very important to me have let me down in a big way. But as you see, from the title of this blog, I consider it my responsibility as A True Friend to wholeheartedly forgive.

Let me tell you about an amusing experience I had many years ago. If you ever travel public transportation, you may be aware that if you chitchat with a fellow passenger, sometimes the subject of religion comes up. And so, one day when I was on a paratransit van, the driver and I began conversing. I, at that period of my life was not a believer in Jesus Christ, as I am now, and I told him so. He said to me, "Well you know what the Bible says 'every knee shall bow and every tongue confess'". He cracked up at my response: "Well why don't you worry about your knees and your tongue, and I will worry about my knees and my tongue".

This is what I am doing today. I am taking concern for my knees and my tongue. And I realize that as a Christian, I am called upon to let go of even the most horrific disappointments that I experience in people. I am here with you now, trying to do that.

My mother was an intelligent women, and very well read, and she had committed to memory a very very significant piece of writing and a life changing writing for all who respect it. Talking about Rudyard Kipling's poem "If". And I bring to mind now the second line:

      If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
      Yet make allowance for their doubting too.

You have to be generous of heart, to make that allowance for the doubting others feel about you. Even more, you have to be very strong, to at the same time, continue to retain that faith in yourself and the things you stand for.

And so, set yourself free today! Stop waiting for the approval of those who may never be capable of giving it. Forgive them, and just let it go. Continue to live for what you believe is right, whether others agree or not.

Corey Hart: Never Surrender