Celebration 22 Michelle Spear

Celebration 22
A woman who I used to call friend Michelle Spear.

This blog is one of the hardest for me to write along with the man who shall remain nameless.  They both represent hurt in my past.  Let me just start off by saying, I have no ill feelings towards Michelle.  I still pray for her often.  I'm not for sure what I did that was so horribly wrong.  She not only unfriended me on Facebook she completely blocked me.  I truly have no words for that.

I first met Michelle while working at Hoosier Uplands.  Later, I became good friends with her at Mitchell Church of Christ.  We were both about the same age, both stay at home mommies, both had husbands that were in ministry, both trying to live for Jesus.  We had a small mommy's group that met together and from that ministry our friendship blossomed.  We had many conversations around a fire pit in her back yard, many good ugly cries about stresses in our lives, and several coffee dates to get out of the house!  I read an article about such thing and I'm going to share some words of wisdom.

One of my favorite things to hear from a good friend is "Let's get together and have coffee."  It isn't just that I love coffee. (I really do.) It's that I love the relationships that have been forged over those long talks.  It makes us accountable.  Real gospel-driven accountability is way more about a life-giving relationship instead of someone reluctantly confessing their struggles.   Healthy, thriving Jesus-centered accountability is reflected in a relationship where each person encourages the other to know and love Christ more deeply.

Why do it?  Because the Christian life isn't meant to be a solo act.  We need each other.  We need the local church.  And at a more personal, one-on-one level, we need friends who will keep us accountable and remind us of God's truth.

Michelle was that for me.  I'm so grateful for that time in my life when God made our paths cross.  My natural attitude is to feel discouraged, to be hard on myself, to lose sight of God's sovereignty and sweet love for me.  He gave me Michelle who could give the best grace-filled pep talk and speak truth to me even when it wasn't easy to say!

I thought I was that for her too, but for some reason she pushed me away.  It was hurtful.  It was painful.  It was unexpected, but it is okay.  I pray that she has this relationship with new friendships, I pray that she knows that my door is always open, I pray that she is not going through life isolated and alone.  I hold on to the sweet memories we had together and try not to dwell on the rejection and hurt.  I'm not going to lie, it's not easy.

She taught me about accountability.  In her honor, I bought coffee for someone in Starbucks not the drive-thru, but someone sitting down having a face to face conversation coffee :)