Letting go of Bad Friends - Sometimes for a season

Is being alone that bad?  How can we chose to put up with so much?  Why do we insist in putting our soul at risk?  Do we not see just how precious we are?  Do we not understand, that valuable things need to be protected and cherished? We are  much more valuable than we think! We are so much more valuable than anything out there, we must not let people treat us like we are not. 

We shouldn't put up with people who do not give us the value we deserve.  We have the strength and the grace in us, to live a happy life without people who harm us and bring us down.  We need to be picky, and to select only great people around us.  

Maybe that means we will only have one good friend, so be it !  Maybe that means we will have none for a time.  Be strong, focus on the things you enjoy.  Work on your dreams.  Learn.  This life is so much more than just settling for mediocre people. Do you not see the beauty around you? 

The wrong "friend"  can change your life, and for the worse.  Do you not see, how much the wrong person can hurt you?  Your mental health?  Your feelings?  Your confidence? There are many broken people out there, that would love nothing more than to break you too!  There are a lot of jealous, envious, bitter, narcissistic, plain old evil people out there.  It is up to you to protect yourself.  You owe it to yourself to be selective, and to perhaps opt for a time of journeying on your own if necessary.

I am praying for you, please pray for me too.  Do not lose heart.  There are many of us out there still.  Even when all seems lost - it is not.  Hold on to our Lord Jesus.  Everything passes everything is perfect.  

You can do this!

Parents Disrespecting the Privacy of their Teens - Is it ever OK ?

I really have a heart for teens.  Many people just dump them into this category of undesirables,  a group of people judged as lost causes.  Many people say: "Well we just need to wait....until they grow out of it", as if they are waiting for a virus to pass.  I disagree.

I love the teen years.  I feel that teens are amazing people that have a lot to offer to the world.  Teens are humans full of love, full of hope, and with a  passion for life.  Often misunderstood, often frustrated by the rejection of adults these beautiful humans suffer in silence, and feel alone.  Teens, those beautiful humans that have so much passion for life, long to love and to be loved, long for understanding and respect, and long for an opportunity to give to the world around them the best they have to offer.  

I have met many parents that are so afraid of the teen years, that they become overbearing and clamp down on all fronts.  These parents let fear set into their hearts, and accept the lie that :  Teen agers are horrible human beings to be controlled at any cost.  And they buy into the fallacy that the only solution, is to treat their teens as the enemy.  

These parents stop listening to their kids and drown their children with unreasonable rules.  Privacy means nothing to them.  They who want respect from the world, offer none to those people they should love most;  their own children.  I know parents who read the private conversations over text on their children's phones, conversations that do not belong to them.  Without permission or any respect, they snoop, spy, and they listen in.  How is it, I wonder, that these parents expect a good honest relationship with their teen, when they themselves are incapable of offering basic respect and trust?

 If you are a teen and you have parents who act this way, please do not despair.  The first thing I would do is pray and ask God to step in.  Ask God to move your parents's hearts and give grace to the situation.  Then I would try to have a serious and honest conversation with one or both parents.  Appeal to their love and explain how you feel. 

If all else fails, be patient, offer it up.  And perhaps most important vow to be different when you yourself are a parent.  Fear can not trump love.  remember what the Bible says:  

" Perfet love casts away all fear"

If your parents are making you suffer you can learn from the situation, so that when it is your turn to be a parent, you are the kind of parent God would like you to be.  A parent full of love and trust and not rule by fear.

If you are a parent, I invite you to pray.  Pray that God will deepen your relationship with your child, so that you can get to know them better.  Pray that God will show you a better way, other than becoming your children's spy, your children's own personal tyrant.  We do not like governments that trample over our rights, but we ourselves trample constantly over our children's rights. 

 That is not love, that can not be. 

 Practice at home what you preach, and have your home be the way you want the world to be like.  

Lets lead our home with trust and love, not fear!

Am I a crush or a friend?

Clarity Please 

Navigating the waters of liking someone is not easy in the year 2021, and it won't get any easier in the future.  So what can one do?  Well for one, we can try our best to not be part of the problem.  

Do on to others as you would like them to do to you!   Does that age old Bible wisdom ring a bell?  When we deal with people and their feelings we need to be very careful.  It is easy to feel important and get lost in the excitement of the moment.  But we can not lose sight of the fact that it is a person we are dealing with.  Stringing a guy/girl along is not only unkind it is cruel.

If we hate the way others are behaving towards us, we need to start changing the world by having the courage to be the ones to act different.  When someone shows interest or affection for you, cherish them.  It is not every day that someone gets to experience the love or admiration from someone else. Don't be confusing, don't send wrong signals, don't lie with your words or with your body.  Look manipulating people is unkind and simply wrong.  We need to clarify our feelings and intentions when someone shows interest in us from the get go!

If you show affection in any way, if you flirt, if you give hope and then pretend you never did - that is cruel.  I know that if you are reading this you are probably someone who would not purposely be cruel to anyone.  But sometimes we end up getting carried away and acting in an unkind way towards others unintentionally. So we need to pay attention, and live more intentional lives.  

Manipulating people is unkind and simply wrong. If you have someone that is showing you interest or affection:

❤    Be clear and honest from the beginning

❤    Do  not give them false signals, or false hope 

❤    Don't act to your friends as if you have never been interested, specially if it's not true 

❤    Don't talk about the person as if they are dying for you and use them to gain admiration 

❤    Be  a gentleman/ kind woman and do not use others as props to get attention for yourself

❤    Don't lie to yourself, you might miss out in the best thing that ever happened to you.  

       

In summary  look:  if you do have feelings, don't be an idiot lol.  If you don't have feelings don't be a liar.  Please keep this in mind, hearts are fragile and one day it will be your turn.  Be kind, be fair, be extraordinary. 

 Certainly todays times are calling for more extraordinary humans. 

Will you commit to being one?