7/365 New faith and friendship folly

Part of the coming home experience meant interacting with my non-church friends. As a baby believer, I was pumped. I was hyped. I wanted everyone to know just how awesome I felt. I wanted everyone to feel the same way. I wanted everyone I loved and cared about to have the same all encompassing love and acceptance I felt. 

Never occurred to me that other people might not feel the same way.  

I did loose a friendship over it. To this day it haunts me. I was so eager to share my new faith, my new convictions - that I trampled over a friends feelings and isolated him from my life. 

My intentions were good, but that didn't matter. 

At the time, all I could think about was - "Why doesn't he just understand that if he admits he's a sinner and accepts Jesus, he could feel this great too?"

Looking back - I sound liked a junkie. 

Because what really happened wasn't me patiently, compassionately and openly sharing my beliefs, but me explaining to him that he just HAD to do this or he might be separated from God forever. 

That's right - I essentially told him he might go to hell if he didn't do things my way. 

Don't get me wrong, I didn't come right out and say that, but I also didn't show real love or friendship to him.

He was patient with me, kind to me, asked me about my experiences.  He let me babble on about it endlessly. He even listened to my heavy handed attempts to save his soul. 

And told me he wasn't interested. 

He even asked me if we could talk about other stuff. 

I told him no, cause this was too important. 

Essentially, I told him my interpretation of faith was more important than our friendship. 

After that experience, we drifted apart. 

Now, don't get me wrong. We were 13 years old. There was a really good chance we would have drifted apart at some point anyway. He was a guy, I was a girl. He was an art dude, I was a music chick. We had different circles of friends, went to different high schools, etc. I don't think this was ever going to be a never ending friendship. 

But the truth is, I didn't give it a chance. I ended it because my faith was too important. 

That experience taught me some hard, but important lessons. I like to believe it kept me from pushing away other people. 

Maybe someday we can reconnect. He's a wonderful artist, an incredibly talented man who is finally getting some credit for his gifts. I will always keep and treasure the one piece of art he gave me - it also reminds me of what I lost the day I valued religion over people.