My Kids Need Friends

Within the past couple of years I've come to terms with the fact that God doesn't want me to have any Christian friends, or any friends* for that matter. I'm 47 and I've been praying and trying for a very long time and now I've given up. And I guess I'm okay with that. Really, what choice do I have?

The hard part is seeing your kids face rejection on the same front. Sure, I know I'm some kind of freak that causes normal people to feel uncomfortable**, but you want more for your kids. Thankfully God has blessed me with a wife from the same planet as me, though apparently from a different continent. My kids don't even have that. Many are the times that my wife and I have said that we wished we could just be "normal" and blend in with the people who spend all day golfing on Saturdays or hang out at tailgate parties or "get sports" or binge watch whatever is the latest hot show on Netflix. But it's not to be. And so we hope with each child that they may somehow break the curse and be blessed with friends.

But those apples fall close to the trees and such a genetic mutation is something Darwin could only dare dream about. Our kids are like us. Dorks. That don't fit in. The way I figure it, you've got the 40% of "normals" who all follow the same trends and do the same things, Christian or otherwise. I'm not knocking them. Like I said, many times I've wished I could just not care about things and just blend in. But even though there are more nerd/dorks/dweebs than normals they are fractured. There are the Star Wars geeks and the Star Trek geeks and the Dr. Who geeks. There are the music nerds who like jam bands like Phish and the Grateful Dead. And then there are the people who like Dave Matthews band, but I really think these are just normals. There are the Rush prog-rock fans and the (name your poison) prog rock fan. And ne'ver the two shall meet. Good luck finding someone similar in THAT mess!

We've been praying for years that God would give each of our children one good Christian friend. Just one. It's not like we're asking for them to have expensive sports cars or great hair. Just one Christian friend to encourage them and help them grow. Iron sharpens iron and that kind of thing. I mean, it's ultimately for HIS glory! All I'm asking is for another coal to be next to theirs so their passion isn't extinguished. But apparently God has so far reviewed our requests, flipped us the bird and said "Request denied, you dork. I only grant the prayers of normals." It's a bitter pill to swallow but I see no evidence to the contrary. This doesn't give me much hope that God's listening to our prayers for their future spouses.

* Meaning friends that I can call up and/or hang out with. I guess I'm pretty sucky at hanging out. I'm more of a "project" relationship person. I have a couple of cyber friends but no one closer than 100+ miles away.***

** And when I try to be normal I just become boring instead, mostly to myself.

*** As if this needed a punctuation mark, yesterday Tim Chandler, one of my very best long-distance friends, passed away. Tim or I would call each other every few months and he always made me laugh and feel loved. Now he's gone too.