A Merciful Breakdown- Chapter 4 *Friendship for Grown-ups*

                                           the beautiful photo by my pirate-y daughter

Chapter 4-A Merciful Breakdown

I hope you will share this week...

please let us know who you are, 

as we are all being open

and allowing the Holy Spirit to minister to our lives;

as we share the deep parts tucked away in our heart... 

Chapter four,

ahhh, 

getting to reread it brought back so many things I wanted to share. 

One being,

  how at this point of the book, 

I HAD to remove the dust jacket from the book.

You see on the book's cover was Lisa Whelchel's smiling face.

The chapter pushed me to the edge, perhaps more than I realized at the moment. 

As I read Lisa's words, I had a harder and harder time relating to her *connection,* 

to what appeared early in the chapter as a *real* friend,

a friend she could finally open up to and find intimacy with...

well, 

I had to remove Lisa's smiling face from the cover. 

I don't know why it helped me, but with tears I took her paper jacket off, leaving a lovely plain black book in my hands. I walked the dust jacket to a far away corner and buried it beneath a pile of things needing sorting. 

Hmm, I am sure there is some deep meaning there, right?

I was wise enough to stop at this moment, wipe the tears away and ask the Holy Spirit what was going on.  Why did I think removing Lisa's beautiful face was somehow going to help me in reading the book?  I am not sure, perhaps it put distance between her life and mine, perhaps it allowed the Holy Spirit to begin speaking to me clearer through the tears. Perhaps it made me think less about all the things she had accomplished in her life and instead focus on the sadness that I was trying to find a solution for.

I think in reality it made me begin to question my worth.  Somehow, all she shared up to this point, both successes and failures (of which she openly shares both), brought me again to the false belief  I have, that I have to get acceptance in order to have worth.  

I began to ask God if I had any worth.  

You know significance. 

I was sorely lacking in coming up with anything that might give me some self-worth.  The more I read, the more painful it became.  Her rejection with her friend Heather, only stirred the rejection that had been stinging my heart for months now.

I guess I am still grieving over the loss of this friend in my life. It has been over a year that she is no longer in my life.  I am not passed it, though some days I convince myself that I can now move on.  In reality I am still very heavy of heart.  I have talked about it with God, with my Knight, with my friends, ...it is a deeper sadness than I have ever experienced before.  A sad that won't let go.  

I read through the 5 stages she shares of this friend loss/grieving process:

1. Denial (shock)

2. Anger

3. Bargaining

4.Sadness

5. Acceptance

I guess though I am sitting longer than I like at number 4, number 5 will someday show up. I can totally remember #1-3, perhaps getting stuck in Bargaining has left me so very very sad.

When a friendship ends, someone suffers- this I know is true.  

Questions Lisa gives us to jump from:

1. What are some of the acceptable-addictions you have turned to over the years?
2. Do you have a secret that has never been voiced to another person?
3. How does the thought of sharing in a group setting feel to you?
4. Were there any signs of codependency in friendships that sounded familiar to you? 
5. Have you experience the loss of a close friend? Did you allow yourself to grieve?  How so?
6. If not, where have you put the pain?