It's My Life - Melody Carlson [2]
So, here's my struggle: Just because my best friend has totally messed up her life by getting pregnant, does this mean I must also sacrifice my summer, my fun, my life just to hang with her while she's being all depressed and glum and tired? I mean, I do believe in loyalty and I'd never stop loving Beanie or caring for her. But what I want to know is: Is it really my responsibility to see her through this whole pregnancy thing? Good grief, it lasts nine months (practically a lifetime in teen years!). And quite frankly, the idea of hanging with a girlfriend who's obviously starting to look pretty pregnant (not to mention how she never seems to care about her appearance anymore!) is starting to wear on me.
Well, now it's plain to see what a rotten, selfish, low-down (and yes, I'm sure, narcissistic) person I truly am. But isn't this my life too? Don't I have the right to do what I want? To hang with whomever I please? I mean, it's my life!!!
And yet, I know (deep down inside of me, someplace where I want to just plug my ears and cover my eyes sometimes) that this is definitely NOT what Jesus would do. I know, good and well, He would NOT treat His friends like that. Sheesh, He wouldn't even treat His enemies like that. And I can just imagine what Clay would say to me right now. In fact, I still vividly remember that time (just a couple weeks before he was shot and killed) when he told our youth group about how he wanted us to love one another like Jesus did, by putting each other above ourselves. And sure, it might sound nice and easy, but let me tell you, it's really not.
Oh, crud, I still have soooo much to learn about being a Christian.
DEAR GOD, IT SEEMS I'LL NEVER GET THIS RIGHT. ONE MINUTE I THINK I'M DOING PRETTY WELL, AND THE NEXT THING I KNOW I'M HAVING TOTALLY SELFISH AND SHALLOW THOUGHTS. HOW LONG WILL IT TAKE FOR ME TO REALLY CHANGE?
Saturday, July 14 (oh, brother!)
We had another car wash today (to earn more money for our Mexico trip). And naturally I didn't even bother to invite Beanie since she's made it perfectly clear that “no way, no how” is she going with us down to Mexico in August. Not that I blame her. I doubt I'd want to go either if I were in her shoes. So anyway, not wanting to bother Beanie, I called Andrea and then drove over and picked her up in my freshly washed car (no need to waste the youth group's time on it!), and we headed over to the minimall where we'd prearranged to hold the wash.
Well, last night Andrea and I both decided we'd try out our new bikinis today. (I mean, why shouldn't we enjoy them while it's hot and sunny and we're getting all wet anyway?) And to our pleasant surprise, they didn't hurt business at all. Man, you should have seen how many cars pulled over being driven by guys who obviously wanted to flirt. (We were halfway tempted to hose a couple of 'em down, but then we might've missed out on some tips.) So as you can imagine, it was a pretty successful fund-raiser. In fact, the best car wash event we've had so far this year.
But here's the clincher. After it's all said and done, Josh Miller (the guy who broke my heart last spring before I gave up dating completely) has recently joined our youth group and is now planning to go to Mexico with us. So anyway, he pulls Andrea and me aside like he's got something really important to tell us. So I'm thinking he's probably going to say something nice about how hard we worked and all, which makes sense due to the fact he's in charge of the car wash today (because Greg Thiessen, our regular youth group leader, had to be the best man at his brother's wedding).
So anyway, we cheerfully come over to listen, and then he says, “You girls think it's wise to be showing so much skin around here?” I mean, he just says this totally weird