I am protective by nature. I’ve been called over-protective on occasion. I get it, I realize it. It is not uncommon for me to resort to slightly fanatical means to achieve the end of protecting those I hold dear.
So when a friend, a close friend, mentions this song and starts to tell a story with tears in their eyes...it takes an act of will and the grace of God to keep me from flying off the handle enacting my version of justice. It takes the cold realization that there is nothing I can do to keep me sitting in my chair listening to them.
We’ve all lost friends. We all know what it’s like to be left alone in the bitterness. Sadly, it’s a part of life. I can remember the names of the friends who’ve left (or whom I have left in some cases) where we said forever without knowing what it meant. I can see their faces and when I close my eyes I can hear their voice - sometimes whispers, sometime screams.
I don’t know what it’s like for you, I don’t know if you cry when you think of the friends who’ve left. I’m not sure if you constantly go back and wonder what if. Maybe you, like me, are so afraid of that feeling that you’re willing to do nearly anything to protect someone else from feeling abandoned and left behind.
But holding onto the pain, the anger, the regret, the vengeance doesn’t get you anywhere. I’ve tried. For years on end I’ve asked myself “what if?” And the answer is always the same: “what if.” There is no going back and changing what’s been done. The past is far beyond our reach. I’m not saying the past isn’t important, I’m not saying the past is never to be talked about. Where we’ve been determines where we go. Everything that has happened to you, to me thus far has happened for a reason. If our past is unsettled, then our future is as well. Never be afraid to settle the past, it happened, it’s okay to talk about.
I have to practice what I preach though; talking about settling your past does no good if my past is still storming. So, to the girl who hurt my friend, who stabbed my friend in her heart on Valentine’s Day...I forgive you. I pray that you never know the pain you caused her, that you never have to experience it for yourself. May you never loose a friend like she did that day - while you hugged a boy she found a dagger in her heart. She would have stayed up with you all night if she’d but known how to save a life. Also, I hope that I never meet you and know that it’s you I’m meeting. I am weak and the temptation to enact my version of justice would cause me to sin, in thought at least but hopefully not in deed. To my friend, my shoulder is always here for you, my door is always open, you will always have a place next to me.
And to everyone else, it’s not worth it. Don’t risk friendship over something petty like high school relationships and Valentine’s Day. The pain we cause isn’t limited to just the person we’re trying to hurt, it ripples through their life and rips at the hearts’ of those who love them. Hate is meant for evil, for sin and nothing else. Better to let a friendship fade than kill it outright.