I AM A FRIEND OF GOD

"I am a friend of God...I am a friend of God....I am a friend of God....He calls me Friend!"

Being a friend of God through song is not a bad thing. However, some may feel that it is not being appropriate to use that same voice when speaking of God. That it cheapens God. God must have at all times our most sacred thoughts, our quiet prayers, our haloed heads, our purest thoughts, our piety.

God must have that, of course, but if God had only that of me, He would have very little of the real me.  And God knows really well the "real me" and is entitled to have the joy which leaps from my spirit, as a person released from slavery into freedom.  I am free now to love God with a heart bursting with the kind of pride only God would accept unconditionally--the pride of being His.

You see, I was a slave.  No, I was not a slave in the same way so many of our darker-skinned ancestors were slaves, and owned by a master, used in horrible ways in fields and homes.  Nor was I a slave in the modern way of the many kidnapped women  owned by a master who rents them out to men by the half-hour in dirty tents. This kind of slavey is horrible.  Yet, I was a slave to my own thoughts about myself.

I was loved but yet a very little girl who tried to be perfect because she was reminded so often about her sinful nature and her naughtiness.  I didn't recognize they were being playful, making a joke.  My actions were not at all funny to me.  Punishment for wrong actions became unforgetable.  All wrongness became magnified. I grew up to believe the worst about myself and kept trying to prove to myself and others that I was a good person.  Being good began to be my goal in life.

Now, worshpping God at that time was really not vital to our family.  We knew of God.  We were even baptized.  But we did not attend church.  My brother, sister and myself were invited to sing Away In The Manger once at a Christmas Service at a church in our small town when I was in 1st or 2nd  grade.  And in another slightly larger town, we went to Sunday School briefly.  My dad was a Mason so my brother went into DeMolay and my sister and I, Job's Daughters, which became the extent of our Christian education.

Jerry and I were married in our early 20's and Jerry went into the Navy for two years.  We had a daughter, Peggy, when the Navy years came along and while serving in the Navy, Jerry became a father of another baby girl, Lynn.  Both girls were baptized.  But serving God did not come until, finally, when our Navy days were over.

That's when I began to learn, really learn, what God was all about. In the express line for the love of my God, the scriptures came alive, I learned how to pray, and God sent many people in singles and groups to show me The Way. I shall be forever grateful for all of their love and joy.

I am just me, in spite of all those who led the way.  Being me is just being the best me I can be. I am not a prophet, priest, or pastor. I don't have a degree in anything.  But God did give me an encouraging heart and a small gift of writing.  Usually, I may encourage through the Word; sometimes I encourage through my glad heart.

Now, if I were not a Friend of God, I might be a Fool for God. What would those very proper, good people think then? I pray that those who wonder about being appropriate might have the joy I feel and the joy I pray that all others might also feel.

Someday I might dance for God.  That would be wonderfully inappropriate and totally joyful!

Thank you, God, for everyone who dares to love you in whatever way they can.

Just me, Jo