Are We Friends Today?
Remember those little folded paper games that girls make in elementary and middle school? The ones where you pick a color or a number and girl with the game moves it opened and closed, until you’re ready to read the little notes is written inside? An inspirational quote. A question to answer. Or, if they’re being really silly, little “fortunes” like “you’re going to marry your crush in one month!” Well, turns out those little games are universal.
And sure enough, a few weeks back I hear “RAQUEL, RAQUEL, YOU HAVE TO PLAY WITH ME” being requested as a girl came skipping over to my side- little paper game poised on fingers ready to move when I called out “move 27 times!”
She rushed to moved the paper back and forth until I picked the color blue and waited for my question. She opened it up, read it silently, and then closed it. She laughed one of those nervous laughs and said something along the lines of “um, nevermind, we don’t have to play.”
“No, I want to. What’s the question?” I pressed as she slowly unfolded the game and handed me the blue tab:
“When was the last time I was mad at you?”
Ya see, this 13 year old girl, full of life and running around laughing with her friends is the same little girl who opened up to me a few months back. Whispering her words, barely audible, as if when I heard her story, I’d run in the opposite direction or push her aside to be alone again.
When you start digging into trauma, the rule of thumb is that actions and attitudes will usually worsen before they get better… and the weeks following that session have been ROUGH (to say the least). She blamed me for “making her” remember. So she’d push, and push, and push- thinking that maybe if she was mean enough (and we all know middle school girls can be truly cruel), I’d stop coming back to check in on her. I’d stop showing up at her side to ask how she was. So eventually I changed my tactic; to gauge her mood I started asking “are we friends today?”
But it wasn’t until I read that little blue tab, “When was the last time I was mad at you?” and gave a hug to a girl with more anger aimed in my direction than I knew how to handle, laughing as I responded, “Our relationship’s complicated, isn’t it? But that’s ok, we’re friends today…” that it dawned on me.
I’m suppose to be teaching her, but each day she’s teaching me about how we act the same toward God. We push and we push and we push and we expect that one day he just won’t come back to us. We blame Him for ‘making us’ realize our pasts. And everyday he waits, wanting to know if we’ll be His friend.
And just like this precious girl at the Hope House, who just wanted to see if I’d keep showing up, He’s still by your side too. No matter how far we push, or how cruel we can be, or how complicated our relationship is- He’s still here, waiting to play our games and give us a hug as we hear “it’s ok, we’re still friends today.”
