Let go, but don't ever give up.

I had a strange dream last night.

I've noticed I'm having more strange dreams than I can recall ever having. I wonder if Kool-aid effects your dreams. That would certainly explain what's going on with me lately.

My most recent dream had more dead bodies in it than I could count, and I won't go into detail but I saw Ronald Reagan shot multiple times. I told you it was strange.

I woke up and pulled up the dream dictionary which informs me that the dead bodies obviously symbolize that I've got a negative relationship in my life that needs to end.

Strangely enough, a guest preacher at our church Sunday encouraged us to not give up on relationships. When in doubt I always tend to follow a Godly source rather than all the strange sources I can pull off the internet.

So I'm standing up.

I believe I've sat down for quite awhile, and I actually had to repent of that as God made something clear to me Sunday. You see, I have a problem.

Somewhere, sometime along the way, I lost my best friend.

I knew this person better I knew anyone else on earth. We thought alike, we believed alike, I knew where he was going to go in a song before he ever went there. We have a shared history of pain and secrets together that no one would probably imagine. There is no one on earth that I've enjoyed spending time with more than my friend. But somewhere along the way, I'm not even sure what or when that point was, but we came to a fork in the road and we each ended up taking a different path.

I've had so much to say to this person, that I never said, just so I wouldn't make them angry. I sinned, in that I wanted to preserve that friendship more than I was willing to follow God. I was afraid angering my friend would keep me from visiting his children, so I sinned in loving his children and placing them over my love for obeying my Saviour.

Ultimately now, the end result is that my relationship with my friend seems beyond repair, I've been kept from visiting with the very children I had made so important in my heart, and I've still never said the things that God continuously prompted me to say.

With hindsight I see that I wasn't putting these other people before God as much as I was putting my own desires before God. Facing a God of justice I have no excuse, and no option but to seek His mercy over my sins. The very idea of coming before my King with my wayward self, pains me. And I find myself calling on His mercies with a simple plea of 'one more time'.

In all of this, I've learned more about God's love for us.

You see, my friend promised me all kinds of physical support for when I begin doing foster care. And while I appreciate him thinking it, inwardly I felt something near physical pain as I wished he'd understand a love that simply desires him as he is. Not because of anything he could do for me. I wish I could hold onto the bond that held us together. I want things to be like they were before. I wish they'd never changed in the first place.

It made me wonder how many physical things I do for God when all He wants is my time. As I tell Him I'll go clean the church for Him, does He groan and wish I understood He'd rather me spend that 45 minutes just talking with Him? As I concentrate on how much I'm able to tithe, does He wish I'd just read His word more so He could tell me something?

God forgive me for holding onto so much so tightly.