“Did you see the top that April was wearing?” Twyla asked.
“So uncool! And her gross hair! It’s lucky if it sees a comb once a week!” Clarissa replied.
“Probably crawling.” Twyla said, and the girls broke into giggles.
“Who’s April?” little Stephany asked, from the front seat.
“You don’t know who anybody is, do you!” Clarissa replied sharply.
Mom looked disapprovingly at Clarissa in the rear-view mirror but she just rolled her eyes and shrugged her shoulders.
A minute later they got to Twyla’s house. Twyla gathered her books and jumped out of the car. “See you tonight,” she said.
“What’s got into you?” Mom asked Clarissa as they drove on. “Lately you’re so vicious and sarcastic.”
“I don’t know. All my friends talk like that. By the way, did you wash my new jeans?” she asked, changing the subject. “I need them for tonight.”
“They weren’t in your hamper,” said Mom. “I guess you’ll have to wash them yourself,”
When Clarissa got home, she put her jeans and a few other things into the washer. At the end of the wash cycle, she went to put her clothes in the dryer. A minute later her, "Oh no!" rang through the house.
“What is it?” asked Mom..
“My white top,” Clarissa cried, holding up a bluish t-shirt. “What happened?”
Mom came into the laundry room and looked through the other blue-tinged clothes in the washer.“Looks like the dye from your jeans colored the whole load,” she said. “Reminds me of a person I know, whose life is beginning to take on the shade of the people she spends all her time with.”
HOW ABOUT YOU? Do your friends constantly find fault with others, laugh at them when they’re not around, use bad language and speak in sarcastic and rude ways? If you’re around such behavior a lot, it’s hard not to act the same way.
Remember two things: 1] you will be influenced by the people you spend time with and, 2] you too have an impact on your friends. Determine to choose your friends wisely, and to let God’s love flow through you so that your attitudes and actions will dye the lives of others with good colors.
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