When You Get Unfriended...

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Facebook can be a miracle or a monster depending on how you  look at it.  The upside? We are able to keep in touch and find long lost friends and maybe a relative or two.  The downside...we can see and hear way too much about people's lives. And then there is the unfriending...

I have been unfriended several times, and to be totally transparent I have unfriended once because I didn't feel safe around the person. Most of the time I have no idea why the unfriendings occurred. I have suspicions though...gossip flew and my status in another's eyes sunk. Anger flared. Jealousy raged. Some just moved on. While most have been no big deal there have been a couple that have stung and hurt the heart. I have had to heal not from the virtual unfriending but the real ruin of relationships with those that I loved and cared for. The unfriending on Facebook was just a symptom of a much deeper breaking.

As I go through the process of healing I am understanding more and more that our only real, true friend doesn't live on social media and never touches technology. {Who needs technology when your knowledge encompasses the whole web and so much more?} His friendship stands regardless of our forgetfulness of Him or our sin towards Him. He is a constant companion and never practices unfriending. We can rest in the fact that with God our status will remain "friends". There is no rejection. There is no sting. He is here to stay regardless of those that move away from us...regardless of the fact we move away from Him.  What counts is that He counts us as friends.

Sure, there have been times in the last few years that I have felt like an outsider...the one not worthy to be friended...the one living on the outskirts of others' lives. But as Thom Gardner writes in Healing the Wounded Heart,

"To those of you who have lived on the edge of camp, in the outer cold away from the fire, God has brought the fire to you."

May we never forget that the only One we can count on for friendship will never count us out. These days, I am putting all my hope in Him. Trusting the One who never unfriends. 

This post is part of my Word of the Year, "Count".  Come count with me.