Growth spurt...

I guess that's the best way to describe what has happened to me over the last few days, both emotionally and spiritually.

For as long as I can remember, I have struggled with friendships in the sense that I'm always sort of waiting for something to go wrong somehow. I've always figured that if I kept my distance until I felt that had "proved" to me that they were a true friend, that there was less chance of me getting hurt. This strategy has served me well...or so I thought until a few days ago. During a conversation with my best friend, I realized that, although this strategy was necessary for me for a long time growing up, things have changed now. Now, I'm blessed enough to have a good group of friends around me that like me for me, and aren't just being nice out of some twisted sense of obligation because I'm "different". The thing that hit me the hardest about this conversation was the realization that I was being really unfair to these people. They have done nothing but love me from the beginning. I feel I should apologize for this. It was wrong, and probably hurtful of me to doubt the intentions of any of you, and I'm sorry.

I know now, that each of you are gifts send to me from God for different reasons...Not because of the things you do or say, but because of WHO you are.