"You got a lot of people in your corner kiddo."

Jerry wrote me, "You got a lot of people in your corner kiddo." I feel as if I've been set in a corner for being bad like I was when little. I got more than one chance to meditate on my past actions. I'm not sure my time in the corner reformed me any, but my mom got some one-liners out of my siblings and me after we served our time.

I mixed metaphors. Back to Jerry's Rocky corner metaphor. I have some amazing, faithful friends in my corner. Today I was fixating on some friends that have bailed on me, but that's not important. It's the people who are faithful and supportive when the problem is no longer new and exciting that are phenomenal. Fair weather people are to be expected. It's people who still love you when unemployed and mired in self doubt lacking any sense of direction... and still see the you beyond your circumstances. They're the friends who recognize that you're not happy when circumstances are on track too. I tend to take these friends for granted until times like these and the other people disappear. I would really like to know someone who could help me land my dream job, but I'm stuck with these people who love me through thick and thin instead. I want an easy solution and get something much more big and true instead.

Which brought me around to how unexpected Jesus was as the Messiah. The Jews wanted somebody who'd show the Romans who was boss and take them to task militarily and politically. They got Jesus instead. He didn't beat the Romans, but he beat death. And, it wasn't nearly as spectacular or instantaneous as they would have liked. Jesus did fix some people's problems up, but for the most part he didn't.

So in a nutshell, I'm comparing finding true friends in the midst of this unemployment fiasco to the Jewish race's overall disappointment with Jesus as Messiah, a God who bothered to become man and overcome death for all his people yet managed to overlook ridding them of their urgent problem of Roman tyranny. Yes, I do take myself seriously. But, I come to this over and over again. God and I have very different views of the landscape and the horizon-- we're looking at very different things when we're looking at my life. I'm looking at circumstances and he's looking at the status of my heart and soul. Very different targets (although they might be pretty parallel right now... thoroughly decimated).

My friend Mandy had an amazing post yesterday on this; she called it Gratitude. But it's a poem about Jesus' love that's so different than we want and exactly what we need. It's beautiful. After you read it, you'll regret bothering to read my drivel.