“Usually” means different things for me today than it did a little over half a decade ago. Thank God, I’ve moved out of the Bad Old Days and into a new life. I have friends and self-esteem (security, instead of insecurity about my identity). I don’t have to win at all costs all of the time. And I don’t mind giving 100% on my end of a relationship. I’m not saying: I always do that. I’m not saying: I don’t ever get tired. But I’m usually good with giving. And when I’m not okay, I don’t do anything drastic; I just step back a little…and allow The Scales of Relationship to balance.

Sometimes you feel like royalty. Sometimes you feel like a dirty bin left on the side of the road. And all you’ve got to look forward to is the garbage man coming to take out the trash. Oh, but he doesn’t take you. You get left behind. What do you do then, but wait for someone to rinse you off and roll you back up the driveway? Either way, you’re at the mercy of a whim, waiting for someone to care. Thing is, you can stop caring, too… But then you’re just trying to fill up the empty with more empty. The real answer’s tough. You have to get mad. Then you have to tell the truth. Then…you have to start cutting things – ties. Investments. You have to be willing to be disappointed. Again.

As much as I experience it and try to learn about it, I do not understand the ebb and flow of relationships. Except… There’s something about most relationships (not blood connections, usually) that makes us treat them like library rentals. What you check out of the library can be returned. If it gets torn, we just scotch tape it. Often, even when they leave us torn, we hold on to blood connections. We never let them go. However, when most relationships disappoint us, we pack them back up like borrowed books and dump them in a drop box. We distance ourselves. We reevaluate. We hold grudges. We let people go.

That’s how it works.

I love people. I love facilitating relationships between other people. I value the connections of others as well as my own. But, for most of this part of life, I’ve been a loner. Thus and unfortunately, it’s too easy for me to let hope in people subside. 

That’s good and bad. Because, people aren’t like God; we’re seasonal. We’re roller coasters. We change. We grow – together…and apart. We disappoint.

So, ultimately, God is who we need. Faith in Jesus Christ. To rest in Him and the Love WHO IS…God.

This is something we need 🤓 Eternal Perspective Glasses to see 👓 When this part of life sinks, our existence in Christ can still float on the buoy of the hope we only have in Him.