A Defining Moment vs. Defining a Moment

A defining moment: an event that controls all future events 

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I was always a best friend kinda girl. But I couldn’t seem to hang onto them for very long.

In 3rd grade, Kimmi’s parents divorced, and she moved to Washington.

In 5th grade, Marcia moved to Michigan. She promised to write; she didn’t.

In 8th grade, Susy decided she hated me. One day, we were BFFs; the next, I was her sworn enemy. She destroyed everything we’d drawn and written together. She refused to talk to me, to tell me what I’d done. She wouldn’t listen to me or hear my apologies. She was done with me.

A mutual friend asked Susy, “Don’t you feel bad losing Cheri as a friend?”

“I’m not losing anything. I’m throwing it away, because that’s what you do with trash,” she responded.

That moment defined me, especially in my relationships with women.

I expected to be left.

Rejected.

Discarded.

In Same Life, New Story, Jan Silvious says that “writing a new story often requires a clear-eyed inspection of what we believe and why.” She points out that many of us make “a lifetime belief from one childhood experience” and allow others’ words “to become prophetic, destructive powers” that control our lives.

Sure enough, three decades of adulthood produced a growing collection of BFFs: Badly Failed Friendships.

* * * * *

During sacred silence at a women’s retreat a few months ago, as I was listening to Natalie Grant’s “The Real Me” and prayer journaling, an image came to me:

sitting in a trash-filled dump, a battered chest full of priceless treasure.

Then, a Holy Spirit “ah-HA”: Throwing away treasure doesn’t turn it into trash.

On the outside, the chest may look like it belongs in the landfill. But neither the tarnished exterior nor the heaps of debris surrounding it can decrease the value of its contents.

I thought back — this time with empathy instead of fear — to the teenage girl whose words I’d given so much power for too many years.

Yes, she said some hurtful words about me.

Once.

I’m the one who’s been re-telling this story, keeping myself “down in the dumps” for so long.

It’s time to get outta the landfill and break open the lock.

The One who holds the key is a true “BFF.”

And He treasures the “real me.”

* * * * *

Defining a moment: revisiting an old event, putting the old story in perspective, and growing beyond the past