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Faithful Wounds

Tonight as I was randomly baking cupcakes in my kitchen, God placed this verse in my mind and wouldn't let it get out of my head. (I didn't know the reference… so I googled it…)

Proverbs 27:6 - "Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful."

This thought led me on to think several things, actually.

One, I thought… do I have friendships that run so deep and friends that care so much for me that they will reach out and short-term wound me in order to long-term better me?? Though I only have one story to validate this is true, I would like to believe so about all of my close friendships. The hardest truths are oftentimes delivered by those that love us the most. Or at least they should be. 

Two, I thought… am I the kind of friend that this proverb calls for? The kind that would be willing to wound a friend by speaking truth into his/her life out of the love stored up in my heart for them. [No. matter. what. the. consequences.] Because I want to be. And I long to be. Though, I oftentimes feel and know that I fail to be.

Three, I thought… why do we run away from friends that wound and fall straight into the kisses of enemies? Seems kinda backwards, right? Crazy, even. But it's comfortable. Oh-so-comfortable. Scarily, complacently, comfortable. It's an easy place to live, but even after all of the justifications have been ironed out in our minds, we must reckon with the fact that it's dangerous.

Friends long for us to be at our best - even if it cost them something. Enemies long to make themselves their best - even when it costs us something. And sometimes, honestly, the lines between the two are so blurred that we can't even maintain 20/20 vision of situations and relationships right in front of our eyes. I've been there. We all have at some point or another in life.

After all that consideration, I ask of you to take action on a few points: 

Take a hard, long look at your life and inventory of your "friends." 
Who are the givers?
Who are the takers? 
Who are the faithful wound-ers, and who are the deceitful kiss-ers?

Be careful of those you write off due to wounds they've caused in your life. They may very well have been/are doing it out of the sheer love they have stored up in their hearts for you. [Granted, some people just hurt others because they themselves are hurting… but that's another situation completely.]

But more than that, be careful of those you keep ever-so-close to your life simply because it's comfortable.

To my dear friends who are reading this, I give you full permission to speak truth into my life. Speak the hard truths. Say the things that everyone is thinking, but no one is saying. Pray to God that my heart hears what your heart is communicating. After all, that's what I'm going to start doing more with the people God's entrusted into my life, as God leads.

At the end of the day, I simply want to be a better person, friend, and woman in the Lord. And this is just one small way we all can spur each other on to becoming better for God's ultimate glory, not to mention our own ultimate good.

And to think… all that introspection… just from a batch of cupcakes.
and a God that loves me too much to let even the 22 minutes of baking time go to waste. :-)

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