Chance Meeting

Tonight I saw someone I used to be close to. Those are always weird moments when someone from your past suddenly shows up in your present and you have that awkward catch up conversation that is a joke because it's ridiculous how much of your life you are summing up in 60 seconds...And it's always that weird feeling of "I used to know you"...This situation was even more awkard because of the background of our friendship...It hasn't been all sunshine and flowers...

I think that my mind immediately becomes a battleground in these kinds of situations. Satan would love for me to assume all sorts of things and focus on a lot of things that aren't true. I have to fight each thought and remember what God wants me to do- love. And in loving, assume the best.

In these times when my thoughts start raging against each other and I'm fighting for a momen'ts peace in my mind I like to just give up the fight all together. I want to just pre-occupy myself with something different entirely. But I know that those thoughts are only going to lay dormant and then resurface again later if I don't deal with them.

The truth is, me and this person, well we both hurt each other. And the truth is that is hard. For lack of a better word, it sucks. The absence of love, in any degree, is ugly and foul...Our humanity, in those times, becomes glaringly apparent...I have to remind myself of the truth and think on the things that are excellent and praiseworthy... The truth is, both of us love the Lord. The truth is both of us are trying to love people too. And the truth is, both of us have not always loved each other the way that Jesus would have us love each other. I'm probably the bigger culprit on that one too...Thankfully it's not a situation where we are bitter toward one another or anything like that, we have just been put down different paths...The glorious part is thinking how beautiful Christ's ideal is. To think if we loved like Jesus did then our relationship would have no bumps or dark rotten spots on it. Jesus' love is free of bruises.

The other part that I think is pretty fantastic is knowing that Jesus knows my failure to love like He does, and He wants to help me with that. He listens to me tell Him about my struggles and He forgives me when I ask Him...I'm so thankful for that.

Tonight when I got home I went in my room and sang a simple song-
Father of Lights, You delight in Your children.
Father of Lights, You never change, You have no turning.
Every good and perfect gift comes from You!

I'm so thankful that His love, unlike mine, never changes. He never changes. He will never know me less or more, He knows me fully and He loves me as I am and is changing me to be like Him.
That thought lifts my mood and makes me grateful that I didn't escape my thoughts but instead went for the truth. It makes me grateful that I can walk away from an encounter like that and praise the Lord.