The Curse of the BFF

I used to have a school days book that my mom recorded all of my keepsake information in about school from K-12.  Starting in Kindergarten, the question was asked "Who is your best friend?"  I remember even from when I was really young always feeling pressure to have a best friend, a BFF.  Growing up in a fairly small school district, I always had a group of close friends, but always longed for a best friend.  It seemed like everyone around me had a best friend.  Someone that she always hung out with, talked on the phone with, someone to be inseparable with.  As I've grown older...much older...this desire to have a best friend has never left me.  I've always had close friends, and some that I considered my best friend, but then something always happened and we ended up drifting apart.  It is something that has been a constant longing in my life.  Lately I've been reflecting on how many great friendship moments I've missed out on because of my longing for a "best friend."  Why do I feel like my life is lacking something because I do not have a best friend?  What's wrong with having lots of great close friends? 

 

Now in today's culture the terms BFF and BESTIE seem to be everywhere.  My three young daughters are no strangers to the terms.  However, I have found myself being very careful with letting them label their friendships.  I do not want them to fall in the BFF trap that I have been lost in since Kindergarten.  I want them to appreciate all of their great close friendships and not get caught up in having one BFF.  I want them to look around at all of the great girls in their lives and count them all as blessings, instead of feeling left out because they do not have one specific BFF.  I feel like as a culture, we are setting our kids up for disappointment with stressing the BFF or BESTIE terms.  Maybe that's too negative of me, but I'm just trying to be realistic. 

Just recently I've come to terms with a lot of stuff in regards to this matter.  I've had numerous people trying to be sympathetic attempt to encourage me with things like "Jesus is your best friend," or "Your husband is your best friend,"  or even "Your mom is your best friend."  And while there may be truth in each of those statements, they are not the same as having that BFF that everyone is talking so much about.  So, I'm choosing to be grateful for the amazing group of people that I am blessed to call my friends.  God has brought SO many wonderful people into my life through so many different circumstances.  And those true friends, the ones I know would be there for me at the drop of a hat, that pray for me, and would never turn their back on me, those friendships are the ones that mean more to me than some BFF title.  I prefer to think of that term now as Blessed Forever Friends.  Because my life has been blessed forever because of those people who I can truly call my friends,  I refuse to get bogged down with negative feelings about myself because I do not have a BFF.  And I refuse to let my daughters grow up feeling that way about themselves.  I want to break the curse of the BFF for myself and my daughters. 

By Lisa Powell

Love Him like I Love You

It was January 24, 2008. It was a cold Sunday afternoon. I remember where we were. I remember what I was wearing. I remember the look on his face. I remember walking out of the house and seeing the looks on my girls' faces. Would this be the last time they would see their Mommy and Daddy together?? It was the day I thought our marriage was over. It was the most gutwrenchingly worst day of my life. And yet, however, it was also the most lifechanging.

I remember driving around on the snow covered country roads, crying out to God and asking "What do I do? I don't know what to do now!" And as clearly as if He was sitting right there in the empty passenger's seat next to me, I heard God say, "Love him like I love you." But how can I do that?? There's been so much hurt. So much said and so much done. How do I do that?? What does that look like? Love, forgive, show mercy, give grace....that's how God loves us. He sees us at our worst and loves us still. That's what I had to do.

It wasn't easy in the beginning. In fact, it was one of the hardest things I've ever done. It's hard to break old negative habits. It's hard to forgive deep emotional hurts. It's hard to work on your marriage when even some of your closest family and friends are telling you that it's over. And yet, day by day, we loved each other more and more like how God loves us. And day by day, it got easier and easier. We've done more talking in the past year than we've done in the almost 18 years we've been together. We are open and honest about everything now...how we're feeling, what we're thinking, what our plans are, what are hopes are, what we love about each other and what we don't like so much. I'm not going to lie and say that everything is perfect now. It's not. We've learned that to have a great marriage, which is what we want, it takes a lot of work. It takes love, mercy, forgiveness, grace, respect, humility, compassion, humor and passion for each other.

We have gone through a lot these past few years. God has transformed our marriage from the worst to the best it has ever been. I love my husband more today than I ever have. I see him now for who he really is. He is a loving father. He is a giving son. He is a caring grandson. He is a talented musician. He is a genius mechanic. He is a terrific friend. He is smart. He is funny. He is giving. He is compassionate to those in need. He is goofy. He is humble. He is the man that I have been with now for nearly 18 years, and the man I want to be with until I am old and gray.

Today we can say without a shadow of a doubt that God has saved us from divorce. He has transformed us and transformed our marriage and our family. We love being together now. We love to spend time together as a family now. We miss each other when we are apart. I can truly say that our marriage would not be as strong as it is today if we had not gone through this really hard time in our marriage.  What Satan intended for evil, God has used for our good.  We knew that as we were walking through this dark time in our lives that God would use us to save other marriages and to change people's lives. Our hope is that we can share our story so that other people's marriages can be saved. Since that time, we have had several opportunities to talk with other couples who are going through the same thing we did.  Our message is one of hope.  It is NEVER too late.  God can and will REDEEM your marriage, if you ask Him to.  Nothing is impossible to God!! He is mighty to save!!!

by Lisa Powell

A Ten-Year Love Affair

It was a dark and stormy night (okay, maybe not, but I love that opening line from the 1830s novel Paul Clifford) in the summer of 2002, and I checked my e-mail in-box.  To my amazement, I found a grammatically correct e-mail from a man on the same dating site as I.  My heart leapt at the proper comma placement, vocabulary choices, and polite undertones (yes, I am a language purist).  Immediately, I typed a passage, hit send, and then repeatedly hit refresh in anticipation of a response.  
After two days of cordial, flirtatious correspondence, we agreed to a face-to-face rendezvous consisting of lunch followed by 18 holes of golf.  Playing in 110 degree heat index weather, we laughed, we glowed, we questioned, we perspired, we listened, and we sweltered (no amount of Degree was going to help this situation).  Not wanting to say adieu just yet, we rented a 3-hour Stephen King movie and ordered deep dish pizza in order to prolong our time together.  Finally, I returned home only to rush to my computer in the hopes of finding correspondence from this dreamy guy in question.  Alas, an e-mail time-stamped mere minutes after my exit from his apartment awaited my perusal.  I was smitten!
Six months later, three days after our first Christmas together, we were married.

He welcomed my dog and cat into our home as his own and endured several gourmet catastrophes such as boxed Kraft macaroni and cheese with a slathering of chopped garlic (hey, I tried).  We missed nary an episode of Bachelor and spent days hooting it up when we purchased our first digital camera.
Wishing to enlarge our family, God blessed us with a little girl after several years of trying.  Although a difficult pregnancy resulting in a premature birth, we endured.  Faithfully, my husband visited me every day after work and all day on the weekends when I was bedridden in the hospital.  
At this same time, my father was involved in a losing battle with cancer.  One evening my dad was unable to make the short walk from the family room to his bedroom.  My husband lifted him as a groom lifts his bride in order to carry her over the threshold and then gently walked him into his bedroom and placed him securely in bed.  To this day, my heart overflows with love as my eyes swell with tears for my hub when I revisit this bittersweet scene and will be forever grateful to God for placing this man in my life.
Twenty-two months after the birth of our first child, our second child was born.  While my daughter was allowed to go home, I had to stay another week in the hospital due to complications from preeclampsia.  In essence a single dad, he gladly took on a near two-year-old missing her momma and a newborn baby girl with an extremely healthy appetite.
Fast forward three years, together my husband and I faced a diagnosis of breast cancer (by this time, we joked he had acquired a lemon in me).  Frightened, uncertain, and exhausted, we had deep talks under cover of the night about the future of my body, our children, and our life as we knew it.  Enfolding me in his arms, he assured me life would continue as we know it during and after we experienced this hiccup in the road.  Truly, with thirty-year-old boobs, droopy boobs, no boobs, only one boob, or fake boobs, he has always made me feel as if he has won the lottery with me, and I know I did with him.
So, on this our ten-year anniversary, I offer a prayer of thanksgiving for my husband . . .

Dear Lord,
Thank you for this man blessing in my life.  Please watch over him and protect him.  Help me to always show him my love and appreciation for his presence in my life as well as our daughters' lives.  
In your name I pray,
Amen