It's My Life - Melody Carlson [39]
But that's not how Beanie sees it. And I guess it should come as no surprise when she calls me up tonight and says some pretty mean things. At least I think they're mean. She says she's just trying (in her words) to speak the truth in love. So she proceeds to tell me how she went to church tonight and Pastor Tony was preaching on this very subject, and now she feels like she's supposed to come home, call me up, and tell me all about it. “Thanks anyway,” I tell her, “but if I'd wanted to hear Tony's sermon, I would've gone to church myself.”
Well, talk about opening a can of worms. She then feels it's her Christian responsibility to tell me that she's “worried about my spiritual condition.” Those were her words! And I'm wondering, who is she to worry about my condition? I mean, this is the girl who got herself pregnant last year, was nearly suicidal, and pretty much a great, big mess. But do I mention these uncomfortable subjects? No way! But as a result, Beanie just launches into this little sermonette about how she used to look up to me in spiritual things, but now she thinks I'm just throwing everything away in order to be Jenny Lambert's best friend.
“I am not Jenny's best friend!” I shoot back at her. “We're just good friends. And besides, I thought you and I were trying to reach out to people at Harrison–”
“Have you told her about Jesus, Caitlin?”
I resent the question and don't even want to answer, but I give it a try. “You know there's more than one way to share something with someone,” I begin, feeling a little hopeless. “Maybe I want to build a friendship with her first, and then I can share later.”
“Well, that's perfectly fine, Caitlin, but I'm just wondering who's influencing whom here? Every day, I see you starting to act more and more like Jenny and less and less like yourself. It seems like you just don't care about the same things anymore. And I can't figure it out. I mean, would you just throw away everything God has done for you to be friends with Jenny Lambert?”
Now I know Beanie really does care about me (we've been through too much together to believe anything else), but the tone of her voice is getting pretty sharp, and she sounds genuinely mad. And frankly she's really hurting my feelings. But I don't tell her that. I only tell her she's being totally ridiculous and that I'm sorry she feels this way. There seems to be little else to say, and we both hang up. And now I feel absolutely lousy.
But the truth is, this really doesn't have all that much to do with Jenny Lambert. And no, I wouldn't throw God away for Jenny, or anyone for that matter. At least, I hope not. But I do think I might be using Jenny's friendship as a distraction maybe (not that I'm using Jenny because I do believe we are friends, really and truly). But spending time with her might be sort of an escape from something I don't quite want to face just yet.
Okay, maybe I know exactly what it is that I'm trying to escape, but I don't want to admit it. You see, it's hard to put these feelings down into words. I'm not ready to see them in bold black ink just yet.
So maybe I can deal with this tomorrow.
Friday, September 21 (apologies and stuff)
Today (after a day of silent treatment times two yesterday) Beanie made the first move and apologized to me. I told her I was sorry too, but that I was confused about some things (I didn't go into detail). But we ended up hugging and crying. And Jenny watched the whole thing with amusement, then told us that she loved how “real” we were, then invited us to go to