Saturday, September 17, 2016

Nexus

Funny hearing this word come from a hairstylist and have it not be a well-known hair product company. No, this time I'm talking about the social group that had started in my church that I went to growing up. When they started the group, it met on Sunday nights and was centered around bringing in people from the local community after graduating High School til mid 30's. It was an unusual surrounding and was themed after a low key jazzy coffee house. It was the complete opposite of anything I had ever seen before (or been around) and I really looked forward to going and catching up with old friends and making new ones. I started to reconnect to some of the guys from youth group before we all had graduated. It was nice. Familiar faces and the beginning of a new chapter in our lives. Really for me, I wanted to see if there was going to be anything different to dating in a church group. I wanted to see if I hung around people who wanted God in their lives then things must work out differently. I was on a new revelation (pun intended) that people were people and the real difference comes in when "we", meaning ourselves, get it. I was so boy crazy and trying to figure out "Was I pretty, was I likeable"? Could I fit into this group of people who had a tendency to be a little "Law crazy" (that's church speak for legalism). I wanted to find people who wouldn't hide what they were going through and be open and honest about what was going on in their lives. I don't have much to hide other than when I'm asked to get in a bathing suit then that's a different story. I wasn't finding many people choosing to be the way I was. I seemed to be the most outgoing and most talkative in the group. I had to break through somehow and find new friends to hang out with. I met this older girl we'll call "Bossy" for short. I must have pinged her hormonal radar because every fifteen minutes she would remind me to stop staring at boys or to stop flirting. I just let it roll off my shoulders. I was on my own and I didn't need her telling me what to do. I didn't much like people telling me what to do and usually I would look directly back at them and think "If I tell them what to do are they going to like it"? How about we start a true friendship that allows feedback or criticism to be applicable. I just heard nag nag nag. I wanted an opportunity to live life. Every time I turned around someone was trying to slow me down, turn me around, or make me do something their way. I made mental notes in my head not to do this in my future when it came to the people in my life. Not to tell them what to do but to go through it myself and share my experience. I was growing through this whole process although it seemed to drag on. My 20's were an incredible roller coaster ride. I didn't even know at the time how many lessons I would learn. When you think about your 20's, are they inspirational?? Yes...I have to say yes, mine were. I had a very introspective year when I left Luis behind and moving on wasn't that easy. I had my fair share of panic attacks and anxiety stricken car rides, not to mention songs that were forever ruined because of the memories that shared the same head space. I was learning through seeking out different avenues of relationships that all relationships are the same. They are built on what? A "foundation" which was really dependant on where you had come from and how much you took the time to be better than that. A rocky or immature foundation doesn't want the whole person, it wants a piece of the pie if you will. Meaning it wants company, stature, sex, control, money, security, basically whatever you can get from another person without putting much into it yourself. This tactic works great for the passive aggressive legalistic bunch I was finding at church. It wasn't truly impressive if you asked me to be part of a group that was hiding the same exact thing you would find in a nightclub. We struggled the same as other people. Sad, we thought that finding Faith at a young age would somehow bypass Satan in our lives. Nope. I learned to understand the only difference about a Christian woman and a Non-Christian woman was where she was Sunday mornings between the hours of 9-12. You laugh but it was completely true. We should be much more quick on the draw to admit our shortcomings, seek out a plan to be better, and to mend whatever relationship we were stressing at the time. What I was experiencing though was just more secrets. The year I remember most was the year 6 Nexus babies were born out of wedlock from the group. Golly, who was going to address the panty droppers of the group????? Um, did we not have enough scripture over the year to warn against such things???? Oh, it wouldn't have mattered. We had missed the whole reason for understanding who Christ was and what was the purpose of putting our trust in him. We hadn't been focusing on what mattered most. OURSELVES.

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