Have you ever had a friend that you kind of lost touch with but you kept up with them via social media? O.k., just say it, Facebook? Anyways, you think you heard something about her husband passing away but you’re not sure? Well, that happened to me today? For years I thought our friend had passed away. I mean really, do you send a text and say, “hey, is your husband dead?” Can you imagine getting that text? Or what might have been funnier is for us to run into our friends and wholley guacamole “He’s Alive!” I run and embrace him, stoke his hair, look at him with an eternal glaze in my eyes, streams of tears running down my face! “How was it? Heaven…I mean, wow, I had you running on streets of gold, wearing a flowy robe and strokin’ a harp!”
The stare you get back, “…so glad to see you too?” I always knew she had a crush on me?
I had that happen to me today! I was praying, yes, I do pray……I’m in the ministry, 7/24 baby! Just kidding, I am in the ministry but I don’t pray 7/24. Anyways, I was praying one of my random prayers, usually the ones where I take a thousand different bunny trials.
And,
I got to thinking about our “dead” friend…and the question, “what if he’s not dead?” I better back up my facts. Off to Facebook I go, but not to message my friend but a mutual friend who knows my randomness and won’t put me down for asking a dumb question.
All’s I think about is how thankful I am that I didn’t send the ugly moss covered cross to her doorstep.
It’s funny how we get our messages crossed. We dismiss it and store it away as fact until…one day… those facts are totally crushed and we realized we were wrong..really wrong! We send the ugly moss covered cross without checking. She receives it, reads the little, tee tiny card that says, “I’m sorry for your loss..he was a great guy, I loved his muscles.” Just checkin’ to see if you were still with me?
What to do then? How do we go about such delicate matters with couth?
- We ask dumb questions: Yes, we are afraid to ask, yes we may hear we are wrong. All’s I can imagine right at this moment is the church lady from Saturday Night Live and her saying, “Hummmm?”, with her knee high panty hose and pursed lips. We say to ourselves, “I’m not dumb for asking these questions. If I am, who cares, this is something I really want to find out! I’m over the people pleasing.”
- You could check into facts: Say you didn’t want to ask a mutual friend about your “dead” friend, well you could always go to the obituary, county records, the graveyard. I don’t know, something like that! Fact checking is kind of like a treasure hunt, you never know what you’re going to find. And good for you if you don’t get sidetracked at the county records office wondering how it was even possible for someone to die with a straw up their nose.
- And Finally. You could go directly to the source. O.k. maybe you don’t want to ask them directly if their husband is dead, but you could just have a normal conversation. It could go something like this, “I haven’t spoke with you in awhile, how’s your family?” I’m sure somewhere in the conversation you will find out whether or not to send the ugly moss covered cross.
Hey, just got a message from my mutual friend, welcome back Bob! Glad you weren’t dead!
If you have questions about your faith and does God really exist. I have listed some great resources for your questions. It’s not dumb to ask
And, If you haven’t seen it
Welcome Back God, glad you’re not dead! What I meant to say, You were here all along, glad they made a movie about it!
Have you ever thought something about a friend that wasn’t true? What did you do to find out the truth? Please leave comments…I like conversation….
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