Friend

When I was 13 yrs. old, one of my friends committed suicide. The day I found out what had happened changed my life. I can remember feeling shocked, then sick.... I couldn't understand. He was such a wonderful person. He was always so polite and kind to everyone. I worked with him and my mom cleaning the elementary school in the evenings. He was always so quiet. He was a few years older than me, but he never treated me like I was younger. I loved to be around him because he always knew how to make people smile. But, he never let people get beyond a point and he only let people know him "so far". The last year he was alive, people were so cruel to him. He was hurt so much. He started saying things that weren't like him and doing things he had never done before. His parents found a note in his room where he had shot himself. He apologized and said he felt alone and that he was a disappointment to everyone.
The day it was officially announced at the school, I remember everyone sitting in the chapel for hours as we prayed. I looked around at the shocked faces and I was angry at the ones who had always been so mean to him, some of them didn't even look like they cared. It took God for me to forgive them. I couldn't go to his funeral....

That same year, I made friends with a girl who was in my same class. She had been abused her whole life. She became one of my close friends. She would call me in the middle of the night crying on the phone as she told me the nightmares she was having of her past. Everyone made fun of her. They called her names and I can remember countless times when I would catch her hidden in a stall in the bathroom floor, crying. I was so afraid for her, because I had just had one friend take his life. She threatened to take hers....

During all of this, I had another friend. She was the most popular girl in school (typical cheerleader). She was my best friend. She was the one who made me realize that even friends can hurt you. She told me I had to choose between her and my abused friend because it was "embarassing for her best friend to be friends with someone like that". It was hard because I couldn't understand why anyone would ask someone to do that and how anyone could be so cruel. I told her that I couldn't just give up on my other friend because she needed me. Then I found out that my "best" friend was doing drugs, among other stuff. When she found out that I knew, that's when the lies started and the rumors spread. I told her I couldn't be her friend anymore and that I would have to tell what she was doing, so she started to spread rumors about me so that "people wouldn't believe me" is how she put it. I was in a Christian school. You can imagine what "bad rumors" will do in a place like that. I started getting threatening and disgusting notes and letters stuck in my locker and back-pack from all sorts of people in the school. I went home every day and locked myself in my room and read books. I would read up to and sometimes more than three books a day to forget everything. My so called "best friend" would call me and tell me she was sorry almost every night and then when I would get to school she would inform me that I would "never get a clue" and she would ask me to stay away from her. I used to sit alone in the back of the lunch room and pray and my "friends" would throw paper airplanes at me with mean notes written all over them. I was too embarassed to tell the teachers or my parents about any of what was going on until my mom finally found out and the mess got even bigger.

I stopped talking to people. I started questioning God until He started speaking to me....
He became my best friend. He never hurt me and He always loved me.

Why am I saying all of this....I never really have before. I don't talk about my life before and up to 4 yrs. ago to people. But, right now, I am beyond being embarassed and I really feel like there is someone who needs to hear this. No matter how bad things get, you will make it through. I only told you a small part of my life. What happened during just those few years have affected who I am today. Would I have changed or traded a moment? No. It all had to happen. I've learned lesson upon lesson. I've also learned what it means to be a friend. So, if nothing else, I hope you take away from this the importance of REAL friends. Don't be fake. There are people that need you. And even if you are the one who feels completely alone....you aren 't.

"Many there be which say of my soul, There is no help for him in God.
But thou, O LORD, art a shield for me; my glory, and the lifter up of mine head.
I cried unto the LORD with my voice, and he heard me out of his holy hill.
I laid me down and slept; I awaked; for the LORD sustained me."

Psalm 3:2-5