Disclaimer: The details of this story are only one side of it... I am sure there could be a bitter, murkier version of it to be told on the other end... I sure hope one day I get to read or hear it because I am a curious one, and it just feels like a loose end in my mind. Okay now that that's off the table, let's go.
I woke up on a chilly Sunday to a rather harsh message regarding a particular post I had up on my WhatsApp status. Now at the moment I was posting it, I was wearing my super jolly extroverted self bearing memories of those really warm friendships. When I say warm friendships, I mean super platonic with zero romantic intentions for the 9 years we had been friends. The wife was upset with my post which eventually meant that the husband who was (yes past tense now) my friend was upset too. I honestly failed to think it through exhaustively, was the biggest mistake I made. So fellow extroverts, let's keep working on this part of us.
Just to go back a little, I had received a call from the husband a few months earlier that I should tone down on my public appreciations but I bet this had slipped my mind. In my human defense though, I had not clearly understood the gravity of the matter from that call and probably why I let it fall through the cracks. If you know anything about me, you'd know that my status is always a gallery of appreciation for friendships that got my family and I through some really tough moments of our lives... could be something as light as greetings from my family to as intense as I love you xxx (insert name). This particular post bore a caption I can't specify for anonymity. However, it was not a post that warranted all the negativity it received.
So, I made a mediocre explanation in response to the text and took down the post before the usual 24 hours lapsed - did the internet forget though? hahaha. A couple of hours later, a courtesy call came through from the husband who explained in a very understandable way how the message could be misconstrued. I still strongly believe, one would only misinterpret the message only if they knew very little to nothing about my values and principles, very little to nothing about who I am. I wished for a call to explain to the wife because I felt a lot is lost through written communication (especially during emotional highs and lows) but the recommendation was to text considering how emotionally affected she was. In words I could find in my heart, I expressed my regret and apologized thrice, and thrice, I got a reject and Stay away from me and my husband messages. One thing I drew from this later as I reflected, was how I have never even apologized to God that much and thought that I take God's forgiving spirit for granted!! I was apologizing not for an act I inherently believed was wrong, but apologizing for how it was perceived - which is an even more reason I felt I sold my spiritual repentance short... because with God, I do wrong HIM. With God, my sin brings HIM heartache (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-tm3UQMVEA).
What hurt me is not even the degree of harshness in the messages, not the shock and surprise that how we perceive someone / how we hold them in high regard could be starkly different when you meet their vexed side, NO. What hurt me is that they both received calls from viewers of my status, some saying it might have been inappropriate. The question that kept going on in my mind was, why can't people just be direct and share that feedback with me? Of all people, it happens to be church goers? (I say church goers because I'm not sure a true Christian would add salt to injury in this manner). I wonder what more negative stuff these church goers said about me to vilify me to such an extent to receive such texts as Stay away from me and my husband. Responding to this totally confused me and felt a lot out of character to even think of myself as a homewrecker... as in mimi, Dolly lover and respecter of family Dolly loool. #megasigh. My thought process continued to; so are there status viewers who are just watching so they can get something to pin me down on? Status viewers creating narratives without ever trying to dig deeper to validate their narratives or get some facts right? Status viewers that are too judgmental? Status viewers I worship with in the same church and would not dare correct me but rather be accomplices to murdering a friendship they know not the half of?
[I am also working on a hypothesis that this situation was made worse by church goers with false narratives of me because I refuse to believe that the wife is as 'harsh' as the messages I received which could be the only other explanation. I refuse to think that she would get to such levels of anger on her own accord even though I know very little about her. Maybe it stems from my weakness of seeing the best in people too. But I take this hypothesis too because I didn't get a chance to talk it over and validate... as the song goes, heaven knows the devil didn't have a prayer... and I felt stuck in the same way.]
I now understand better that friendships evolve once families are built. I understand though that how one felt about a friend doesn't end abruptly. I also understand that my very liberal expressive nature is too much and some Africans and conservative Adventist church goers are not ready for it. I assume one day the wife might advise her children or some youth somewhere that she protected her marriage and family from a scavenger friend. But the advise I will give to my children and any youth that would care to listen is, make sure your future spouse knows about your most important friendships - heck even have coffee with those important friends so that when another Dolly-like character makes such a post, my hypothetical husband and I would respond and say we are always here for you and now you have one more friend (my husband). I look forward to a world where this will be perfectly okay. I refuse to lose friendships to marriage because I run a really lean and tight ship of friends hahaha. I will encourage my children to make really good friendships but make a full disclosure of the personality, nature, depth and length of each. Now in this case, my friendship may not have been worth the mention in which case I would say please give your friends a heads up too so that you are on the same page. I would have appreciated it if I knew that "Dolly, our friendship has run its course and I would appreciate it if it ended." This is a better ending than the one I got without any final words.
I mourned a lost 9 year friendship. I remembered when I visited him at hospital, I remembered bidding him goodbye when he got his posting outside Nairobi, I remembered how he was one of the few that actually came to visit us at Spinal injury hospital once in a while when the church deserted us; he represented a circle of friends but not a church. I remembered the days he could find us a ground floor house for us to use, I remembered how he would drive my sister when I needed it, I remembered how he called just to advise me - life, medical or even professional advice. I remembered the little stuff too like the fridge magnet etc. I remembered that he was not my first call, not a frequent call either, but a reliable friend I knew I had. I remembered, then buried it all with the tears. I wiped the tears and counted one less friend because when I commit, I keep. And my commitment to the wife was I would respect her wishes. I just hope one day she would truly come to forgive me and understand we are all HUMANS just working our way to heaven and that everything else is just earthly noise we should strive to filter out. That we are all just sinners saved by grace. I love that family regardless because I know God is in it.
However, beyond the rollercoaster of emotions (because I am a sucker for lessons), I am truly grateful for the lost friendship, because it opened my gratitude-filled heart to these four things:
- Clear indicator to invest more in my same sex friendships; I am truly grateful to God that I have a wonderful team of female friends in my corner so it's totally a quick win for me. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adTzhXRsfVU) And for the 3 or so unmarried male friends, let's have a closure conversation when the time comes hahaha... I am definitely NOT the kind of woman to have such type of text exchanges and would love to NEVER have this experience repeated lol... Now don't get me wrong, male friendships are super super valuable and definitely bring a different yet important perspective to friendships; more hands on, practical etc... so I will continue to invest in them too albeit from a distance.
- Churching and being a Christian are two totally separate things... in all this, I realized churching does not reward/appreciate/ understand extroverted individuals - they are mistaken, misunderstood and misjudged but hey, I got to love God even more. I am now a really devout, even more committed churchless Adventist. As one of my friends mentioned, Heaven will truly shock us!!! I am doing my best to shock people hahaha.
- Sisters and friends that know me deeply and loved me back to a smile. I will not forget how my sister insisted I cry about it. She showered me with words of affirmation and rededicated this piece https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F727iU7jPOE to me which I sent onwards to a couple of my FEMALE friends because LOVE must be spread. Also that this experience insures my sisters against a similar encounter in future because we all learned from it.
- There's so much BIBLE for me to read. Yo, I remember how I got to the brink of quitting my service to God because I couldn't take worshipping with those church goers that probably poisoned the situation. I am so grateful for an Elder that insisted on calling me and shared some verses with me... verses that I will continue to hold dear. He talked of Nehemiah, Tobias and Sanballat - I need to refresh my memory on those characters haha. But it was a powerful reminder of how much of the WORD I need to have to strengthen me on such days. One of the verses is below, that my role in Christian service is that I be found faithful. The rest ceases to be my concern. This totally bounced me back to my mission; to love God deeply, love those around me like God loved me, and just be a good HUMAN.
Oh I also cleaned house - my contact list no longer has any binge watchers (or so I hope) hahaha... But if any churchgoer happens to read this, I implore you to focus on the cross. Wintley Phipps puts it accurately, "The reason for which we were created is to grow every day to more resemble, reflect and reveal the character of the One who created us." Your foot is already in the door, don't lose heaven in such a sloppy way as the tongue. I love you, because that's what I do best. I keep loving even more. :)
One of the gratitude app daily quotes also couldn't be any truer...
This, right here, is my TRUTH.