Pity Party Postponed, Perhaps Permanently

Originally Posted July 18, 2008

We all have friends. There are the friends you can talk with for hours about nothing...and everything...and anything. Then there are the friends you call when you really need to hash out some spiritual issues and you need someone who will tell you what you NEED to hear instead of what you WANT to hear. It's funny how you sometimes avoid discussing something with the friend you know will tell you the truth...because you don't want to hear it. You just want to whine, complain, and commiserate. Well, I recently had a friend do me a favor: she called me out on some stuff. And she did it with such grace and love that I didn't even feel rebuked, although I certainly had been.

I had been feeling a little sorry for myself. I mean, I had hired the party planner, ordered the cake, and had hung up the balloons and streamers for a full-out Pity Party. I was feeling like I wasn't getting the love, the attention, the compassion, or the understanding I needed from my family or my friends. Look, let's be real here. I've been dealing with an acute illness for over 6 months now. I'm pretty much alone...in my house...by myself...most of the time. It gets a little bit lonely. Most of the time I don't mind. I have the world's cutest doggies and kitties around to snuggle up with, and I have beautiful, peaceful surroundings that I can just soak up. But there are days when it would be wonderful to get a phone call from someone that misses me in the places in my life that I hoped I was making a difference. And when the calls don't come, Satan whispers in my ear, "They don't care. They don't love you. No one misses you when you're gone. You're not important." And if I don't cast down those thoughts and bring them into captivity with the Truth of God's Word, I start to feel pretty low.

So my friend calls, and I invite her to my Pity Party. Instead of pulling on the pointy party hat and joining in, she cracks out the Bible and just brings my party d-o-w-n real quick. She tells me that maybe, just maybe, I am expecting things from people that they can't give. People are never going to fully understand what I am going through physically...how could they? I don't even understand it half the time. And spiritually? Because of 15 years of chronic illness, I may have learned a couple lessons about compassion, about faith, about suffering, that some of my loved ones have not had to learn yet. Maybe I should be using those "gifts" God has given me to serve them, instead of expecting them to serve me. I'm expecting people to skip all the steps on the path that led me to where I am today and suddenly have this understanding that they could not reasonably be expected to have. Could it be that God has allowed me to have these sufferings, to learn these lessons, so that I can "comfort those in any trouble with the comfort [I myself] have received from God" (2Corinthians 1:4). In other words, she reminded me once again that it's not all about me.

If you're planning a Pity Party, find yourself a real live Party Pooper to tell you the truth in love. Everybody needs a friend like that.

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