Only a few times in my life have I really offended someone to the point of them really not wanting to continue friendship with me. The first time was when I was 11; I was in Miss Spooner’s 1Y class, and we had all recently passed the 11-plus. I was put in a project team with Amanda, who up until that point in my life had been my best friend, and we were to do a project on Barnstaple together. Except about one week before the project had to be completed, I dumped Amanda, thinking that she had done no work on it whereas I had done loads. The reality was, if I remember rightly, that actually my sister, nine years my senior, had done loads on the same topic for her GCSE project, and I had nicked the lot. After that time, mine and A’s friendship was never the same.
The second happened last year in Kyoto, where, not least due to a number of complicating factors in our lives, me and another friend 'G' parted company on very painful terms. And on Facebook today, on seeing another girl's name pop up on someone's page, I am reminded of another couple of young international girls in Kyoto, who could barely be bothered to give me the time of day – I don’t think because I had done anything wrong in their eyes, but I simply wasn’t their ‘type’ of person.
These latter ones hurt me, and still do. Partly because I don’t believe I was wholly in the wrong, and feel reduced in worth through their attitudes. Also because I am hurt about the places I was in the wrong and hurt them. And sometimes I am frustrated because I just lacked the courage or know-how to know what to do to be friends with them. I still don’t really. But I have learned something.
I have learned that you cannot please everybody, and not everyone will like us; that even our most gallant efforts sometimes aren’t good enough, and that sometimes people won’t forgive you for mistakes. And that is why we stick with those who do love us and forgive us (like my husband), we rub shoulders in intended friendly harmony with those who don’t (like the girls above), and we don’t let our lives hang on the ones that simply don’t work out – or can’t under the circumstances they found themselves. (But that is the voice of one talking today who feels a bit down, who has been reminded of past hurt. But other times, when we have our perspective right about ourselves, the question must be, could there be reasons why we go out of our circle, and risk being hurt again?)
God forgives me, God lifts me up, God gives me purpose in life, God helps me and those offended move on.
