Friends.....they come and they go, but for some reason the ones that go are the ones we wish would stay.
My husband and I befriended this family from church that we met at family camp and we started to do quiet a few things together. We thought we had some things in common and thought we would all get along well. You see, they have 5 girls (ages 25-16) and we have 4 girls (ages 23-17). All of our girls love animals, love to shoot guns, love to do crafts and love to work in gardens. However, there are a few things that make us very different. They do EVERYTHING together as a family, they don't do anything apart. We encourage our girls to meet friends, to get jobs, and to become independent, AND we do things together as a family. They encourage their girls to stay at the farm (it's a mini-farm), have a job but put everything back into the farm, they can date but only boys from the church (which I don't have a problem with really). When we have a birthday in the family, we have BBQ's and invite our friends so we can have fun, they celebrate birthdays with family only. I'm guessing that we didn't have as much in common as we thought which is a bummer because I like them.
A couple of months ago, the husband friend heard a rumor about my husband, and he took the rumor as truth. Both husbands belong to this group and they meet once a month for meetings. Well, during this meeting, he tried bashing my husband in front of everybody (about 30 people) because of the rumor. My husband was shocked to hear the things he was saying and asked him what he was talking about. He tried to discredit my husband and make him look like an idiot but in actuality he was the one that looked like the idiot when my husband and some of his friends reassured him that it was a rumor and not truth. Yeah, so the friend felt about 2 inches tall after that. Since then, we obviously haven't had the relationship that we once had. Talk about feeling a stabbing pain in your chest thinking you had some good friends when in reality you don't.
Well, it feels really weird going to church now, seeing them but not talking to them. I tried looking their way and waving but all they do is turn around and walk away. Rejection, I hate that feeling and I'm not even sure what we did. Did we offend them? Does the friend not like my husband because he stood up to him for the bashing? What?
Because of the people we are, we have forgiven him for doing and saying the things he said. We pray for them all the time and hope that someday we can sit down and talk things out. But for now, We will continue to be the friends we are and enjoy the friends that have stayed.
Many Blessings,
Shauna
