connect

something I have learned in the last five years is,
not everyone has to like me.

no, Im serious, I didnt know that before.

imagine my relief.

I have spent so much of my life and my time and my energy trying to make everyone feel about me the way I thought they should, MORPHING into their every whim, attending to their every invitation, fearing when I turned my back what they would think of me.

someone told me today, " i heard she just... doesn't really connect with you." and do you know what? thats ok.

because I dont have time to connect with everyone.
i just dont.
and neither do you.

and I had to learn the hard way that even Jesus had his 3, and then also his 12, and his 12 each had their few, and so there were 72... and so on.

i eventually found myself exhausted until my friend, Tammy D, told me a practice she had learned. She made three circles. the first has three people in it. the second had 12. and the third had a certain number. and it wasn't to try to be exclusive or rude or unfriendly, it was for sanity. To remind herself who it was that God had invited her in that season to invest in. Who had he called her to love? who had he called her to call family?

and then you love furiously. you love them well. you do your best. you dont exhaust yourself or feel the need to connect with everyone and their mom and their moms sister who knows a guy who has an aunt who owns a jelly donut shop... you are a human being with only so much to give and offer and if you give and offer you want to give well and large and long and wide and reflect Christs love

you
you know your capacity

i thought I was an extrovert, SNORT
THAT WAS A JOKE

I learned finally from exhaustion how much I loved to be alone
and i have since learned

and i have found so much health in surrounding myself with my few, and then my few, and then my crowd. its a warm cozy home and because Jesus is enough for me its now ok when someone "doesn't really connect with me" because

they dont have to.