I have a habit of sharing the Bible verse of the day from my Bible app onto Facebook, but recently I did not. The verse didn’t resound within me like most do, and it bothered me that it did not. I just couldn’t help it, though. The verse from Proverbs was about loyal friendship, and that was something I didn’t put a lot of trust in. Opening your heart to friendship was easy for most people, but for me? Not so much. My inner circle is small.
See, I have a hard time making friends. I’ll hang out with my siblings, and I call my husband my best friend. That’s pretty much where the buck stops, though. I’m a self-proclaimed introvert. I’m the type of person who will see someone in a store, look down, and run the other way rather than make conversation that’s uncomfortable for me. It’s not like I’m trying to be rude; it’s just hard having relationships. I can talk the ear off my patients at the hospital bedside, telling them my whole life story sometimes. But maybe that’s because it’s part of my job. I enjoy communicating with others, showing God’s love, and having a good time. There’s simply that part of me that doesn’t do well with friendship. Even though I’ve grown tremendously in this area over the past couple of years, I still can count my girlfriends on one hand. And that’s going all the way back to third grade!
Recently I was talking to my seven-year-old about being nice to her cousins and sisters. I explained to her that you can never fathom how your actions may affect someone. Perhaps even for life. I told her some of the things that had happened to me growing up. I didn’t recount it all. Much of it was too harsh for her tender heart to hear.
I explained how I was bullied in school. Girls who had been my friends for years suddenly wanted nothing to do with me. They certainly didn’t want to face the wrath of the bully themselves. I was a ghost, a walking misfit. If I wasn’t ignored I was taunted and laughed at, the butt of jokes. I was [beaten] up, my hair pulled out by the roots, and it still to this day grew out uneven from one side of my head to the other.
I could still see the remnants of vulgar names and taunts spray painted on the road signs in front of my parent’s home. Over twenty years later and it hadn’t faded away, from the signs or my heart apparently. It brought to mind the prank calls, dozens in an hour, the bloody, stuffed animal thrown in my driveway, and the trip my parents took to the police station trying to press charges and offer me protection from my tormentor.