18 years

Today is my spiritual birthday and I just now realized it. Well, technically, it's the day I celebrate my spiritual birthday. I was baptized on April 16, 1988, but I accepted Christ several days beforehand. It's mind-blowing to think that I've had a personal relationship with Chist for 18 years. Whoa.

Anyway, I just realized it. And today is Easter. Interesting how my priorities aren't exactly what they should be right now. Praise the Lord for sending Christ to not only die on the cross but to raise from the dead and live forever in my heart. While it's a shame that I don't always make Christ a priority in my life, I am redeemed by the blood. I don't live up to a bunch of standards or priorities I must fulfill because Christ died for me, the chief of sinners. Amen to that, or as a wise man once said, "True."

I'm a little down tonight. My week-long birthday party culminated today with the birthday cake mom served after Easter lunch. So now, the celebration has ended and reality begins. I'm 25. What do I do now?

To be honest though, I have much more on my mind right now than my quarter-life crisis.

I'm currently faced with the possibility of ending a long-time friendship. I'm preoccupied with the battle going on inside of my head. What happens when someone you care deeply about hurts you? And what if it's not for the first time, but it's one of many times, and this time, it's worse than it's ever been before? It sounds like an easy answer but it's not. When you invest time, energy, laughter, tears, hope and love into a person, it's never easy to just toss it in the garbage can.

Funny, it seems like to me that there is a perfect man in my life that invests in me, yet I constantly fall short...

I need to learn how to set boundaries. A fault of mine is that I throw myself no-holds-barred into relationships of all kinds and then when the person lets me down, I'm crushed. Mom and Dad constantly warned me of this when I was growing up. Dad even went as far as to remind me that people are always going to let you down, so don't allow your happiness rest on your expectations of them.

But regardless of whether or not I set boundaries, what do I do with this relationship? I've offered forgiveness, so that's not an issue. But do I continue to allow this personto be an active part of my life? Am I setting myself up for more hurt? I wish it would just go away so I don't have to deal with it...

Ugh.

Ya, so back to my spiritual birthday... I have a friendship that will never fail me, and that is my relationship with Christ. Perhaps I'll talk to him tonight about failed relationships, expectations, boundaries and codependency. I'm positive that if I seek Him, I'll have direction and peace. What more could a gal ask for???