By June Narber

Situations arise in our lives and we try to solve them. Sometimes the best solution is to first think about how the current problem came to be. I try to work backwards. First, I ask myself 1) Did I cause this problem directly? 2) If the answer is no, I ask, did something I do or say indirectly cause this problem. If the answer is yes, I then rethink it from the perspective of not only how to resolve it, but how to make sure it never happens again. If the answer was, no, I never caused or influenced the current problem to come about, I try to solve it by looking at the best ways of eliminating the stimuli that feeds it. Here are some examples: If a debt problem or a certain debt by itself, I eliminate it next time around by thinking before spending. If a problem associated with a relationship or another person, I try to take them through the before-mentioned steps. At any rate, I never give up in trying to resolve the problem. However, there are times in life when the best solution after you’ve tried everything else is just to walk away. This is not running way, this is a last step solution to the problem, whatever it may be: money, a job situation, a relationship, or others. By walking away, you are releasing yourself from further influence, responsibility and pain of the given problem. In some cases, this is truly the only solution that will have lasting result. How does that tie into the title of this

Article, “Never Give Up”? Never giving up means to not quit trying, but it does not mean to torture your self over a situation that has no solution in the current reality and time. Never giving up comes into play because that means in the given situation at hand, you may walk away for the time being, but you come back later to see if there is anything else you can do to help it; times and season changes all things, and that includes situations, mindsets and people in general.

I lost my best friend I ever had in the Sabbath keeping community about five years ago. The circumstances are hard to relate, but the situation was not anything linked to what I had personally done. However, her family saw other wise. It seems that the family involved influenced their adult daughter into the mindset that her friends were responsible for her acts of sin; for her sliding from their set concept of the ideal Christian woman.

For example, the parents believed it was unrighteous for a 25-year-old single daughter to be out with a girlfriend after 9 PM. It was unrighteous for a woman to travel alone. In fact, the woman’s first marriage was a direct result of her parents’ tight control over her. Her second failed marriage was the result of it being forced upon her. The last thing I ever was able to say to her was “Get out of there, don’t marry him.”

She never matured emotionally; never learned the lessons of making decisions for her self, be they right or wrong, and standing up and acting on what she decided was the best course of action for her physical life. By being an obedient and spineless daughter, she lived two lives: one as the righteous perfect daughter, and the other as a woman that did what she wanted; but without reason or long-term planning. She learned to lie and hide the truth from her family in order to have rare moments of freedom. Those few precious moments of freedom soon became the thing that corroded her life because they were stolen moments for her. No moment of our life should have to be lived this way, as “stolen moments”. Each moment should be pure, full of joy and happiness and lived to the fullest that Christ allotted to us when he said he came so we could “live life more abundantly”.

The results for my friend were horrible. Both sides to her life came to a head and she quickly blamed her rare adventure outside of her family paradigm as the culprit. She never came to the understanding that she was allowing her parents to control her life, and thus, stealing her life from her.  It so happens that through making mistakes, we become strong Christians, stronger people, more stable adults. She made mistakes, but she also for the first time in her life, had allowed her natural personality, interests and feelings to come the surface. Thereafter, and before that time, she had lived in an emotional cocoon so dictated by her mother. As a best friend, I saw the things that were going on that were not right by the word of God. I tried by best to help guide her toward solutions. However, the end result of the situation, minus me from the equation is that the real issues just got covered up and buried. The family, and the friend pretended none of her prior situations including mental/personal issues even existed. It was cast upon me as the negative influence because I had inspired this individual to think for herself. To this day, I still pray for her and ask that God release her from her own spiritual coffin.  If faith is not from the heart, and action truly by individual choice, then that particular faith is not truly real and not of Christ.  The day will come when this individual stands up for herself, chooses her own path of life in terms of living on her own, working for herself and comes and goes as she desires.  The day will come when the words, “never give up” will radiant from her person.

As we enter the Passover season, friends, including those no longer present in your life should come to mind. Pray for them and if possible reach out to them. Never give up on a friendship no matter what the circumstances. In my case I’ve shared with you, I had to walk away at the time because I had no choice. You can’t force someone to live up to your ideals,  but you can expect them to at least live their own lives, not shadows reflecting nothing but others expectations for them. But note, every captive will one day seek freedom. Whether from the bondage of sin; from the world; from a set of circumstances, or from a hell of their own making. As Christ continually reaches out to us, we must reach out to others, both as a Christian, and simply as a human being. Life is about relationships as much as it is about “family”.

Never give up your objective, your calling. Never give up on your friends, and most of all, never give up on Christ working his miracles in your life. Finally, I add, don’t give up on yourself, because you are uniquely you, a fantastic creation in the hands of the master potter. To my lost friend, I say, I’ll never give up that you will find the sunrise in your own life. You’ve got a friend waiting to walk with you, whenever you want.

Copyright © 2010 June Narber, All Rights Reserved.