A Week of Loss

It’s been a very strange week. The world is in great turmoil. Yet people are the same. When we are untouched by what goes on around us, we become harden in our hearts. This week, the death of a beloved son and brother, a country devastated by nature struggling for life, a birthday, a proud father, a man honored for his service, a loss of a friend now calling me names, these are brought to my attention as the week ends. I rejoice for the good things in life and I am saddened by the bad. Some of these things touch me personally and others are far beyond my reach.

This week a friend of 15 years has made me her enemy. I thought of the word friend and what it means. According to the Dictionary: Friend: A person whom one knows, likes and trusts. A person attached to another by feelings of affection or personal regard. One with whom one is allied in a struggle or cause. Root: pri-to love, beloved, belonging to the loved one not in bondage but freely. I think this well describes who friends are. You don’t have to think like each other, have the same beliefs, nor are there any restrictions, but affection freely given to each other in trust and love. My friend and I shared no political ideologies in fact they were opposite. We have no family ties. She believes in abortion and not in God and in fact doesn’t like Christians in general. I am of the opposite in my beliefs and I am a Christian. 

So what did we have in common? I’ve thought about this often. We had many shared values. Mine came from my belief that God is love and to be trusted, and I realize I am his child. In my knowing and loving God, I take on his character as I learn and grow closer to him. I am not perfect. I have flaws to overcome; yet without God I can do nothing. With God all things are possible. My friend on the other hand, has no Godly guidance. I imagine she sets up her own values and standard in which she lives her life. I believe she has many good qualities. We also share similar businesses.


When I look back, there is nothing I can say negatively about her business practices. She has always been honest with us. The things I know or think about her personal life, I will not use against her, for I have always respected that it is her life to live. 

Last week, when I sat across from her discussing a business proposal, I saw a stranger talking to me. An extremely independent and proud woman, asked my husband and I to put our interests aside and let her use us and our talents so she can benefit financially and make a name for herself in the art world. These words and actions were to us, “put the master craftsman in the hands of the apprentice”, Or “let the student teach the expert teacher”. She proudly told us she deserves this business proposal she can do it and believes she has the “right” to it. She would compensate us for our work. We had been lead to believe that we were supposed to be a team. We suggested a partnership. She says partnerships don’t work, but she would consider it.  We left her knowing our friendship and business relationship was at a crossroad.

We would have expected trouble had this come from someone other than a friend. Business is competitive and usually comes from outside of your associates. We now had our friend wanting to use all we know for her own benefit, and we were suppose to just lay down and allow her to walk all over us, in the name of friendship? What happened to the trust and affection friends have for each other? Our choice was to become her competitor and make our own business proposal aside from her.

The stranger we had known as a friend became angry, bitter, and vengeful. Your life in the hand of a true friend is safe. When a “friend” turns on you, someone else appears, a stranger and uses what they know about you as ammunition to harm you.

They vomit out all sorts of ugly and unpalatable fodder. All their pride, jealousies, devious actions and thoughts, come bubbling out of their mouths with the purpose to harm, slander, and make you look the villain, all the while they are the victim of your evil ways. With out any conversation, she publically “unfriended” me. Word doesn’t even recognize it as a word; it has a squiggly read line under it. In a world like ours today where little is valued when truth is spoken, I guess people need that word. Most of her family followed. I wasn’t offended, but puzzled, that I hadn’t known this side of her.


What I do know if you shut your mind and heart to know truth about a matter you become your own God because you allow yourself to set the standards of what is right and what is wrong.  When people aren’t open to the truth in a matter or they can only see one side, then they stand in opposition to any kind of love or friendship. They become closed-minded and closed heated. There are no words you can speak that would make any difference. 

There is a mind set and no one can prove her wrong. We are now backstabbing liars, betrayers, and not true Christians. If she didn’t like Christians before, she now has a good reason to hate them, and in fact we just proved her right in her own mind. Now Karma is going to get us?

Maybe I should have known better. My values came from God. Her values came from herself. Our opinions being opposite when it comes to life should have been an indicator to how far our friendship could extend, this case not far enough. Maybe we didn’t share the same values after all. I for my part will continue to love my neighbor, my enemy, and all of God’s creation. I am bound to do so. I must continue to trust God in all his ways and he will make my path straight. Not my will but his.

I wish my old friend no ill and in fact, I hope her life goes well. 

All I can say is “I once knew you as a friend, you are now a stranger to me.” 

As the week is ended life will continue. Japan will have its struggle. My brother will see more joy in his family and his son in the coming years. My nephew will receive more rewards, his wife and family will grieve for years over their loss of a wonderful young man they loved dearly. I will lay to rest my friendship. I will pray for all of you. May the peace of God abound in our lives for His reach is out stretched beyond our imagination.