listening

I have been feeling like no one is listening. Why is that? Why is it that I feel I must blog to get someone to hear me? I post a status change on facebook, no one notices. I talk to people and get interrupted all the time. I talk to my husband and he does something else at the same time. I reach out to have a conversation and get interrupted by others and other objects such as phones ringing and tv and even the computer. Am I that insignificant? Is anyone that insignificant? Do the things I say sound that stupid that no one wants to hear them? Why is it that I feel like I am the least important thing around here? I am not high maintenance. I just want to feel like someone actually is not going to be rude anymore and shut off the darn tv, close the stupid computer, or turn off the dang cell phone and look at me when I am talking to them and give me their undivided attention. It doesn't seem to be just my family and friends, but a wide rampant part of our culture. Listening has become a thing of the past. Now people pay to have someone listen to them. It is called a counselor. I am guilty of it too. I won't lay blame at everyone else. I do the same thing as well. I hate feeling this way though. Maybe this is God's way of helping me to become a better friend and a better listener.

We learned in Sunday school last week that God does not make us insignificant. I know that is true, but why then do we feel like we are? because that is the message that we send one another. We fill our lives with preoccupations of all kinds, sports, tv, cell phones, texting, facebooking......the list goes on and on. As these things fill the holes in our schedule, relationships and the feelings of others become less and less important to us. But I find it interesting that we aren't just robbing others, we are robbing ourselves of relationships. A great friendship is a treasure, a gem that you don't want to lose. But it takes both people to love one another and to LISTEN, to put those distractions away for a bit and to just look at them and make them feel important.

I just realized I do have a friend like that. What a blessing. My husband wonders why I love this friend. She is rough around the edges and can be brutally honest. But I love her all the same. She puts her distractions away and just listens. No matter what is going on in her life she puts it aside and listens. I get her full attention and she looks at me when we speak. She drops everything to be there for me when I need her. I do the same for her. I may not always agree with her and she with me, but we listen to each other. We share thoughts that men can't understand, we share feelings that we can't share with our husbands. I just don't get to spend enough time with her lately because she is now a working mom and I stay at home. I miss her all the time :( I just know that she is at a place in her life where she is doing what she has to do. Friends like that are hard to come by.

I think that now I am going to make the effort to be a better friend, to talk less and listen more and to put my distractions aside and look people in the eye and make them feel important. No one is insignificant. God tells us he loves us and we are more important then the birds in the air and the lillies in the field. He listens to us no matter what. I think that we should strive to be more like Christ. People were his focus, not on where he was going to go that day or what he was going to do, but to whom he was going to minister. We should be like Christ and focus on being there for each other, not on ourselves and how much we can get out of this life. The best thing we can do for ourselves is to be a blessing to others and make THEM feel significant!