I confess that I have often wished I didn’t have to meet another single new person. Ever. Again. I have so many people in my life, I don’t have time to love all of them the way I should, why would I want more? I don’t know how many times I’ve thought,  I don’t need another single friend. I’ve got enough good ones already.

So when the phrases, Enlarge your circle, Widen your bubble, Pop your bubble, began bouncing around in my head…Hello, God, don’t mess with me. I like my bubble…I may or may not have had some internal arguments raging. OK, at times it’s like a volcano inside my head. So there.

I wrote these phrases on a post it note and put it in a drawer so I wouldn’t have to deal with it just yet.

It’s been haunting me ever since.

After all, I’m a constant contradiction.

I love people; I dislike people.

I never want to leave my house; I want to travel the world.

I love God; I don’t always love Christians.

Let’s just start with that for now…no need to go into ALL the contradictions, we’d be here all day…

I enjoy having friends over, eating a good meal and having REAL, down-to-earth, raw conversation. When I’m with close friends, my heart is full to the brim. I genuinely love that.

It’s the forced, surface talk, strained get-togethers that make me want to dunk my head under water and not ever come out. I’ve always felt that way, but the older I get, the more I truly cannot bear the forced.

And then you meet someone new who just completely wipes out all your preconceived thoughts and you feel like you have known them forever after talking for 10 minutes. I met that person last Friday and have seen her twice since then. Already, I know she is a lifelong friend~ the connection is that strong.

So, yeah, God…I’m good with more friends. If they’re the right ones. Feel free to nudge again sometime.

Shoot.

It’s way bigger than that.

Dagnabbit.

Every Sunday, I’m forced to flush any prejudices down the toilet and love people right where they are. People from all walks of life come to my church and for a blissful hour and a half, we are ALL the same. And it is in this time of clarity that I know this is how God sees us all…ALL THE TIME. We are all hurt, broken, damaged people. We are all struggling with the same issues, if it isn’t one vice, it’s another. We are certainly all struggling to love like we should. I’ve never been around so many hung-over, addiction-bound, grief-stricken people in all my life. I know them. I am one. No, I’ve never done heroin, but there are other addictions, other sorrows, that are more easily hidden. It puts us all on the same map.

There is a small congregation of cigarette smokers who gather outside the church when service is over. I tell the kids not to inhale as we’re walking to the car.

There are some who get clean for a while and then go back to their former life. Some we never see again, others keep trying. Thank GOD.

At first it bothered me that my kids were exposed to all of this AT CHURCH. Not just seeing addictions firsthand, but some people don’t always smell the best. Sometimes they ask me for money. Sometimes they say inappropriate things and I’m uncomfortable.

But where better to learn about life? Where better to know there is a God who loves us all? Where else will people get help and find a Savior?

And even then…when they do, everyone will not look, sound, smell, BE…like me.

We get in the car and we talk about the issues by name…because they have a name. It isn’t just Addiction, it’s George and Sharon and Michael…

Enlarge your circle.

Widen your bubble.

Pop your bubble.

Try it. It will turn your life upside down. But you will see beauty in the dirt. You will see a God you can believe in. You will find love like you’ve never known.

Now, I’m not saying I have it all worked out. I still burrow deep and try to get inside that bubble again. It is safe, after all. But that’s why I’ve written it down. That’s why I say it out loud. And when I get in too far inside my own walls, that’s when God nudges me again. It’s worth it.