Hosanna

by Pastor James Bell

Proverbs says they are faithful (the wounds, not necessarily the friends). That means there is a caring purpose in the wounds of a friend. Friends don’t hide truth, they share it. Their friendship grows as truth shapes and develops them.

If you are like most of us, you have both assumed friends and trusted friends. The difference in assumption and trust defines, sometimes sadly, the quality of a friendship. For example, there are friends about whom we assume good things. We feel a certain level of confidence in these friends. We assume they like us and have our backs. We assume whatever we hope for but don’t have reason to actually know. The somewhat crude dissection of that word, assume, is to some people enlightening. It doesn’t,  however, prevent us from the sadness of the realization that we assumed incorrectly that someone was more of a friend than they actually were. But the bitter taste of false assumption does help us to grow a little bit emotionally and spiritually. We might end up blindsided and disappointed, but we pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and move on down the road. Lesson learned.

But when a friendship is based on trust, things happen differently. There is the unique and enjoyable privilege of being oneself, faults and all, without fear of being judged or misunderstood. Acceptance is based on our mutual knowledge of our core values and our struggle to let God mold us into something better as we grow. A trusted friend appreciates your struggle as much as the benchmarks that indicate the progress you have made. Freedom of expression in an atmosphere of acceptance is the hallmark of friendships based on trust instead of assumption. Through the years, I have learned to greatly value those friendships.

Unfortunately, when we love and trust, we risk the loss of the very relationship we value. A broken trust is much more devastating than a false assumption. You don’t kick yourself for assuming; you focus on trying to survive the tidal wave of hurt. Initial disbelief is followed by a sucker punch of lethal, joy-killing truth about what happened or what was said. For the first few minutes you feel like you want to die, but instead you just throw up. Your trust is screaming in your mind that this cannot be true. Days pass with a kind of emotional numbness. After a time, the open wound becomes a tender sore spot, then it becomes a scar. It doesn’t hurt like it did, but the memory of what happened stays with you. Sentences and phrases keep repeating in your thoughts, neatly categorized and tucked away in the complicated filing system of the mind.

To feel the stabbing pain in the small of your back, and then pull out a knife with the fingerprints of a trusted friend is not the same as the wounds Proverbs describes. These wounds are not for growth, insight, and course correction. They can destroy your capacity to love and trust others. They cause fear of intimacy and cynicism about all things relational. They stifle the child in your spirit. They steal your joy. You have to make yourself go on.

If you are reading this and you can relate to some or all of the feelings on this page, I want you to know something. I have been there, my friend. Unexpectedly, I have often met Jesus in these dark places and have experienced his love in a deeper way than at any other time in my life. In these deep valleys of hurt he rushes to us, with a hard embrace and a strong word of encouragement. And he leads us out again, into the light.

Yesterday I lost a trusted friend. Today I will allow Jesus to treat these wounds. Tomorrow I will love people, even trust people, knowing that there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. I also realize, through tears of understanding, that he will stick close, just as close, to the friend I lost.

Your wounded heart will heal. In fact, grace heals us and heals through us. Often at the same time.

Pastor James

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