Doors...Ugh!

I realized today just how many wonderful friends Nathan and I have and we continue to make more wonderful friends. God has truly blessed us with people who love him and can help us keep on track.
Tonight in youth group Pink talked about being thankful. It just hit me that I am THANKFUL to God for the friends he has lined us up with.

It seems weird to me that as one door opens another closes. I sometimes wonder "Why? Why do any of the doors have to close? Can't they just all stay open and we can all wonder round and round?" Obviously some doors need to be closed and sealed forever but others, well why just one door?

Today while thinking about my true friends, (You see I am very picky about those I actually consider a friend. I feel that I have many many many wonderful acquaintances but friends don't usually come in groups, unless you have an amazing growth group like me. I also believe that you can only have 1 best friend. I have never really got the whole "I have 2, 3, 4 etc. very best friends" what really makes them special if there are more than one of them? But hey each person is different so whatever.) I came to the realization that I am losing a friend.
I have been friends with this person for quite awhile now and I have felt over the last several years that our friendship has been crumbling.
Why is it that we sometimes cling to any shred of hope we can grasp, to hang on to something that is one sided, only to be disappointed again and again? Are we gluttons for punishment? We put ourselves out there just to be taken advantage of and absorb more hurt and pain than necessary.
Why?
I am not trying to be a martyr a victim or whatever here. I have in soooo many relationships been a terrible friend and people clung to me when I should have been dropped off like yesterday's trash and not looked back upon.

I realized that with some people it is just easy to be a God loving, caring person around them. With others it is far too easy to have "fun" around them and lose sight of who we really want to be.
I have tried so hard not to be a bible beater with people who do not have a strong faith but looking back I wonder if that is what God wanted me to be. I just kind of feel like at this point no matter what decisions I made, I could not have made the right choices.
Ugh! How frustrating.

So to make a long story longer ;0) at what point do you know what you need to do? Do you keep fighting remembering all the great times? Do you just let yourself fade into the background? Do you take a stand and say "Hey..."?

I believe that God loving people can be friends with those who do not know our loving father, after all someone needs to be their unintentional shining star, so it is not a matter of that. Perhaps as we grow we change and that is why relationships die.

My best friend, Marva Rhea, once disappeared from my life for awhile. We went months with out talking and hanging out. We just let it slip. When we came back together it was like we never missed a beat. At one point she told me that she purposefully avoided hanging out with me during that time. When I asked her "Why" she said it was because I made her want to change her life and give up the bad choices she was making and at that point she did not WANT to give up these things. ~I can respect that, who am I to judge anyone?~
In our conversation she said that I never harassed her about these things I did not agree with or made her feel bad, but just being around me made her desire to be a better person.

Please believe that I am not delusional enough that I believe that I make people want to make positive changes. It is pretty cool that I made her feel that way but we had a very special friendship, that's why we were very best friends! The funny thing is that she made me want to be a better person too!

So I thought "Do I make this person feel bad about the decisions they are making?" I have not tried to and I am not judging them but I didn't with Marva either. We often surround ourselves with people who are making or have made similar decisions as us. It is a natural comfort, they have NO room for judgment at least that is what we think.

I do want better for this person but I am not someone who thinks that I can "fix" people. I am but a mere tool for God and we all have free will. No one can control our actions or our decisions.

So I will be praying about what I should do. At this moment I feel like I should just let myself fade into the background. But who knows perhaps God will lite a fire in me.