I’ve had a recurring dream. Well, more like a series of dreams with a recurring theme. In each I am with a group of friends and we are all having a good time. Suddenly, they have all gone and I have been left behind, searching frantically to find them. My dreams always end with me still searching hopelessly for my friends who vanished.

I now realize that those dreams were realizations of fears I’ve had. Fears that if those around me, my friend, ever got to know the real me, they would leave me. They wouldn’t want anything more to do with me. I would be left behind yet again.

I’ve tried different ways to avoid being abandoned. I’ve given up and gone into isolation to prevent the possibility of rejection. I’ve gone through periods in my life where I tried way too hard to keep my friends. It was always a fear-based solution, never one based on faith.

Now I’m beginning to understand that I am accepted and loved just as I am. My Jesus promised He would never leave me or forsake me, and He has more than kept His word. I have known His presence when I felt my heart was breaking into a million pieces. I can even look back on those nights when I felt alone and see in faith Jesus holding me in His arms and I was too wrapped up in my own pain to notice.

Sure, a few friends have given up on me and bailed. Some have been called to different paths than me. But I have family who loves me more than I deserve. I have friends who are sticking with me and encouraging me. I am a better person, a more whole person, because of them.

I am finally learning that I am a likeable person. I am finding out that I am loveable, because Jesus in me makes me that way. I know that my identity and security lies in the One person who will be with me to the very end, no matter what I do. That I won’t ever be left behind.

You never have to worry about being left behind either. If you belong to Jesus, you never have to worry about being left alone or abandoned. Jesus is the friend Who sticks closer than a brother. He’s the One who has promised to be with you to the very end. And He is as good as His word!

Amen and amen.