One Minute You're Up, One Minute You're Down
Never in my life have I received as many "conflicting" emotional phone calls as I have today. Each call brought with it a flood of emotion and very little time to deal with them. It started with a call from a friend who was sharing the news of the loss of a loved one. I mourn this loss with her and could barely find the right words to say, when another call came through on the line. Hoping to ask this friend to call me back, I hear a triumphant, "It's a girl!" on the other end of the phone. Talk about one extreme to the other! I felt like an emotional ping pong ball. Putting my celebratory friend on hold, I returned to my other friend and offered to spend time with her later in the day. Sadness and sorrow. Check. Regret that I couldn't do more. Check. Shock at the direct contrast between phone calls, literally minutes apart? Check.
The initial phone call had brought forth feelings of sorrow, yet now I was back on the phone with my joyous friend whose uplifted voice and overwhelming enthusiasm literally overwhelmed my sorrowful feelings. In a way, I felt like I was betraying one friend by experiencing more pleasant feelings with another.
Hours later, my phone rang again. "Did you hear that so and so lost his job? Can you believe it? He's had that job for years! And now to lose it to a layoff, can you believe it? He must be devastated!"
For the second time that day, my heart fell. My friend needed his job and excelled at it. His pride in his work was often shadowed by an arrogance I found annoying at times "they can't live without me!", but in reality, he was good at what he did, and he knew it. Unfortunately, money is the bottom line, and by eliminating his position, the company ensured a lower bottom line. Once again my feelings came back in a rush. Shock. Anger. Surprise. Frustration. Compassion. Thankfulness. Therefore by the grace of God go I. I didn't know what to say or do. Surely if my friend had wanted me to know he'd lost his job, he would have told me himself. To know that he hadn't, made me sad. Maybe he was equally shocked and embarrassed.
I hung up the phone and tried to process what I'd learned when the phone rang again for the fourth time.
"Hey there, it's me! You'll never guess what happened to me today! Remember I told you I'd applied for that new position at the community college? I never heard back and thought for sure they'd chosen someone else. Well today I got a call that they're interested in me and want me to come in for an interview first thing in the morning! Can you believe it? This is such an answer to prayer!"
You had to be kidding me.
Four phone calls from four different friends in four different parts of the country with four different life-changing experiences.
What to do, what to do.
As a friend, I did my best. I think I said the right things and sounded sincere. In reality, I was scrambling for the right tone, the right level of concern, the right level of joy and some sort of internal reassurance that I was sending the right messages to the right person.
What an incredible illustration I had today of the unpredictability of life. It reminds me of an old saying, "some days it's chicken and some days it's feathers." Today, I got to experience both vicariously through my friends.
I know that there will be highs and lows but rarely are we prepared for them. But they both have to exist so that we will recognize and appreciate each when they occur.
I feel for my friends, all of them. I know what it is like to feel like you're on top of the world, and I know what it's like to feel like it's fallen out from underneath you. The good news is, tomorrow is a new day.
I hope that I did what I set out to do: be a good friend in a time of need and celebration. It's hard to know the right way to respond and sometimes words just don't seem strong enough to capture the feelings of my heart.
I thankful that today I am in a place to be there for someone else.
The initial phone call had brought forth feelings of sorrow, yet now I was back on the phone with my joyous friend whose uplifted voice and overwhelming enthusiasm literally overwhelmed my sorrowful feelings. In a way, I felt like I was betraying one friend by experiencing more pleasant feelings with another.
Hours later, my phone rang again. "Did you hear that so and so lost his job? Can you believe it? He's had that job for years! And now to lose it to a layoff, can you believe it? He must be devastated!"
For the second time that day, my heart fell. My friend needed his job and excelled at it. His pride in his work was often shadowed by an arrogance I found annoying at times "they can't live without me!", but in reality, he was good at what he did, and he knew it. Unfortunately, money is the bottom line, and by eliminating his position, the company ensured a lower bottom line. Once again my feelings came back in a rush. Shock. Anger. Surprise. Frustration. Compassion. Thankfulness. Therefore by the grace of God go I. I didn't know what to say or do. Surely if my friend had wanted me to know he'd lost his job, he would have told me himself. To know that he hadn't, made me sad. Maybe he was equally shocked and embarrassed.
I hung up the phone and tried to process what I'd learned when the phone rang again for the fourth time.
"Hey there, it's me! You'll never guess what happened to me today! Remember I told you I'd applied for that new position at the community college? I never heard back and thought for sure they'd chosen someone else. Well today I got a call that they're interested in me and want me to come in for an interview first thing in the morning! Can you believe it? This is such an answer to prayer!"
You had to be kidding me.
Four phone calls from four different friends in four different parts of the country with four different life-changing experiences.
What to do, what to do.
As a friend, I did my best. I think I said the right things and sounded sincere. In reality, I was scrambling for the right tone, the right level of concern, the right level of joy and some sort of internal reassurance that I was sending the right messages to the right person.
What an incredible illustration I had today of the unpredictability of life. It reminds me of an old saying, "some days it's chicken and some days it's feathers." Today, I got to experience both vicariously through my friends.
I know that there will be highs and lows but rarely are we prepared for them. But they both have to exist so that we will recognize and appreciate each when they occur.
I feel for my friends, all of them. I know what it is like to feel like you're on top of the world, and I know what it's like to feel like it's fallen out from underneath you. The good news is, tomorrow is a new day.
I hope that I did what I set out to do: be a good friend in a time of need and celebration. It's hard to know the right way to respond and sometimes words just don't seem strong enough to capture the feelings of my heart.
I thankful that today I am in a place to be there for someone else.