Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint,   and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary,and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint. Isaiah 40:28-31

You can be super choosy with your cheerleading team while you are going through a life crisis. You can also isolate yourself for only so long.  However, sooner or later, odds are, while you are in the middle of the bowels of circumstances, bearing your soul to the likes of slowly peeling your sunburned skin off, someone, sometimes, whom you least expect, will surface and throw a comment or two that comes directly from a insensitive pool of feelings.

Ouch!

Realize, even the best of us can be insensitive at times. It just makes it doubly hard when we are so vulnerable to begin with. It feels like coating a newly acquired sunburn (to use that noun again) with baby oil and going back for another round of sun.  Basically, you can alienate the person (for however long), who shoveled the little nasty at you, heave a nastier comment back to the offender or accept the remark and move on. There is no right or wrong approach. I, myself, have  reacted with all three different responses in different situations.

As adults, we all know that the nicest people can sometimes slip and say less-than-amicable things. We can over think the situation, try and dissect it to its original root and, in essence, give it a lot more brainpower than necessary.

It’s done. Wrong words hurt regardless of the bearer’s intention.

The sad thing though I find is that once someone says something hurtful, I am guarded with him or her, shielding myself from further attacks. The art of dialoging, which I think is the crust of any solid friendship disappears. Instead, the relationship becomes one sided, however temporarily. Whether I regain my original trust and the dynamics go back to where they were, only time will tell; but with the damage done, for me, cannot be so easily reversed. I don’t like neutral conversations with my friends. Real conversations constitute real friends.

Through my crisis, a few well-meaning friends have fallen off the radar.  One of my friends, for instance, who listened to my heartbreaks early on, turned around later and said, “If only you knew what I was going through.”

This comment came after I thanked her for listening to my grief. Once she said this, I felt like every single confidence that I shared with her was devalued. I also felt guilty for my grief, and that made me feel devalued as a person.

We’ve all heard Eleanor Roosevelt’s famous saying, “Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent.”

For me, I abridge this as, “Nobody can hurt me without my consent.”

In the final analysis, others can help empower me, but I have to put more of the faith in me than in them to do the job; all the faith I must give to God. For He is the one only one whom I can depend on completely. Gosh, after all, He is God; unlike people, he will never falter.  What more do I need than his never ending beacon of light? He is how I can switch on my game face garb and aim to win. The obstacles of life can be a monster of a challenge, but you have the best coach who will never abandon your side.

Until next time….Faith forward!