Peoples in our lives some come and some go, how we interact with them say more about us than about them.......

I for the most part have always been a people watcher.  I spent a great deal of my childhood helping raise my siblings, and that in and of it'self if very normal.  I have 11 siblings, as I have said before, that vary in ages below me. 14 months (one died), 22 months, 3 1/2 years, 6 years, 10 years, 12 years, 14 (almost 15) years, 42 years in triplet.  So I have an unusual spread with most of my siblings.  I spent my teens baby sitting, and then became a mother at 20 ( the oldest of my sister siblings to do so, one of my brothers was 40).  I had 3 kids, but wanted more, Poppie only wanted 2 our great compromise, we ended up with 5, and we currently have 9 grands.  I moved around a lot as a child so I never really made long lasting relationships that were like normal nonmoving kids relationships, or so I thought maybe? as my kids (as children) have never moved around and they struggle with making lasting friendships so maybe it is generational more than environmental, or maybe it is really everyone's norm more than we think.  My Mom has always had few friends except for a tiny window in her life.  I do have some really good friends but they are few and far between.  I think I am liked but maybe in a way that doesn't invite more closeness, maybe I am like a cactus, prickly who knows and I am really to old to care or change on that front.  I cherish the ones I have and seek out the ones I really want to cultivate.

I once saw a photo of Poppie as a small child.  His cousins were all playing in a group and he was sitting a ways off watching from the outside looking in.  I am like that I think but maybe not is such an obvious way, maybe that is what I saw in Poppie to begin with, a kindred spirit.  We are you know, but you have to really know  us to know that.  So many people make such assumptions and never know that about us, they see us as very different and that in and of it'self is probably the success of our relationship.  We just get each other as maybe no one but God does.  We are both watchers of people's in ways.

I watch people come and go in my life and always have, whether it was me going or them running away from me.  I am rarely what people assume I should be or will be when they first see me.  I am a person so many people make the wrong assumption of.  That can be good, or it can be bad, but usually not middle of the road, in the end people like me or they just plain don't.  I have learned as I have aged how to make it more the like me part than the don't like me part.  I can't say I have ever not been kind to most people, I don't lie, and I never intentionally do, as a matter of fact I have never written a lie on this blog, it is part of that fact that it is a sort of an accountability that I make to myself.  I am writing to come to terms with many things in this blog and one of them is me so don't ever make the mistake of thinking I have ever lied here.  It is also why some people run from me but you aren't going to hear that I have gossiped about you somewhere, not that I have not fallen and sinned by gossiping, which I have really worked to over come, but the reality is I don't gossip if I have something to say to you I say it to you, and that is why you have decided to not be my friend sometime the truth hurts and I am considered mean spirited. I just don't see that candy coating something is the best way.  NO, I am not going to tell you you are fat, I usually try to find something truthful to say about people in a positive light if I need to.  If you asked me if your first pie ever was good, I know I can find something truthful to say about it that is positive, I don't have to tell you it was horrible to just be mean.  I am however not going to let you hurt my kids, my spouse, my friends or the random person on the street with your mouth if I can intervene.  I rarely hurt people just because I can I don't think God wants that, but he also doesn't want me to allow you to either so I have the right to walk away and never look back.

I was given many talents from God, maybe a bushel, but one of them is intuitiveness I can and usually do get the right impression of a person the instant I meet them and that sort of gives me the want or the not want to cultivate a relationship in the first place. My Mom and my Grandmomma's both taught me to be kind for kindness sake so you won't know what I thought about you or what I felt when I meet you.  I don't have to be rude I can just walk away knowing I don't want to pro sue a relationship.   I am a good service worker because I know how to make it professional, and not personal, I know how to make people comfortable with out seeing it as any more than what is expected of me.  I have watched people all my life and know a lot about the kinds of people this world has in it, the good, the bad and the ugly.  I have seen them all and know one when I see one.  I do wish that more people had that in them, I see the sorrow of a life lost because someone they meant helped them run head long down the wrong or evil path, knowing once they start there is almost nothing you can do to help or stop them.  You can only pray that you might get to pick up the pieces later and have a moments chance somewhere to intervene.

I do know that how we treat others is more about us than about them.  I am general a liked person, because I try to remember that Jesus treat others with kindness and I try as I grow to emulate that. I know that Jesus never lied or sugar coated anything in his life though.  He was never mean, or violent and only ever used anger in a righteous manner toward people.  I struggle with anger sometimes but for the most part I am learning not to be offended and to overcome offenses as best I can.  I am a work in progress, the Lord is working on me to make me more like his son, I have a ways to go.

I pray that you are on your journey to live with the Lord one day.  I hope you are more like Jesus daily, I pray that you have begun your journey with your salvation.  If not the day awaits and today is the day it could happen, you could be saved in God's Grace, think of that, nothing could be more important, all else can come after.... tomorrow.