Quicksand of Pride

Oh how sad it is that so many relationships get and stay stuck. They get mired down in the quicksand that is pride, jealousy, unforgiveness, and misunderstanding.

People move on, but relationships can remain interminably stuck.

I wrote a post several months ago about bullies. A friend of mine was buying gas when an almost unrecognizable man from his past walked up to him and apologized for the way he bullied my friend in junior high school.

My friend was relieved and grateful for the man’s kind words. Almost immediately, the old ugly relationship became unstuck. Two grown men were finally able to heal the brokenness and send the old hurts packing.

I recently saw one of my old bullies. We’re grown women – she’s a grandmother – but the relationship is stuck in a muddy swamp of judgmental condemnation. I’m courteous when I’m around her, but I can still see her cold eyes and her gnarled finger pointing at me from across the table during a conversation many years ago.

You’re weak.

You’re not a good friend.

You’re jealous.

God has graciously allowed my family and me to walk through incredible fires. I didn’t come out unscathed, but I learned many things about myself. I discovered I’m stronger than I could ever have imagined and I’m a generous and steadfast friend.

I learned that when we unfairly accuse others of jealousies and hidden sins, we’re actually revealing more about the state of our own hearts. When we point fingers at others, we shine spotlights on our own darkness.

I recently spent a bit of time with another old friend. It’s been years since I had a real conversation with him and the friendship ended badly when he called me a liar. While he and I are both cordial, the relationship is stuck.

Does he still believe I lied? Does he see me for who I really am? Does he care about what my family has been through—the miracles we’ve seen, or the life lessons we can share with the world?

I never lied to him – not ever.

People grow, change, move, mature, and evolve, but pride keeps relationships stuck.

So, how do we find our way out of the gunk and goop that keeps relationships in a bad place? Well, we don’t “find” our way out of it. We FIGHT our way out. We have to confront, tell the truth, chase away misunderstandings, and break the chains of pride and preconceived judgments so that we can be free.

I’m exhausted from trying to single handily pull relationships out of quicksand. I’m not even sure why it’s important to me, when it’s painfully obvious that it’s not important to those who insist on remaining buried in the past.

That’s not true. I know why it’s important to me. I value what once was, and losing you still hurts.

Beyond Acceptance

I do write a lot about reconciliation. It’s an important topic for me as I’ve sought it from a number of people I have loved. Finding true relationship harmony goes way beyond forgiveness and one cannot do it alone. To forgive is easy, but truly reconciling a broken friendship is hard.

I think we confuse simple forgiveness with the deeper act of reconciliation. Forgiveness can lead to tolerance and acceptance, but reconciliation leads to an intimate level of love and trust. It’s not enough to simply tolerate you, and I would hope you would expect more from me. I can tolerate the squirrels that scamper along my backyard fence, but don’t expect me to invite them in for tea.

Consider the act of reconciling a checkbook. I remember back in the day when I would compare my check registry with the monthly statement that came to me from my bank. I was sometimes surprised to find that my number did not match the one on the computer-generated bank report. We failed to balance.

The first step to redeeming an unbalanced checkbook is to acknowledge there’s conflict. If my registry says I should have $300 in an account, but the bank insists I only $220, I can’t ignore the discrepancy—unless I want to deal with overdraft charges, of course.

Step two is to accept responsibility for personal mistakes or wrongs. Maybe my math skills failed me, or perhaps some human bank employee used the wrong numbers or data. If neither one of us takes responsibility for the error, but rather we stand our ground like a two-year old and say, “not me, not me”, there can be no hope of balancing.

The third step is to adjust and fix the problem. Perhaps one of us was given faulty information, or insufficient data. I’d sometimes find I had less money in my account simply because I was too lazy to input a check right away and I just forgot about it. That was never a good thing. There were times, however, when a low-level employee of the financial institution made the error.

Finally, it’s important to absorb the lessons and learn from the mistakes. What could I do to make sure I kept better records? Companies are always doing their best to up their costumer service rating, so if a bank employee made a mistake they were usually quick to fix it—to reverse any unfair charges.

The great thing about reconciling immediately is that we are constantly being given a brand new slate. The first day of each month brings with it the chance to start fresh with no negative carry-over from the previous time period.

Reconciliation is not simply ignoring the problems and sweeping them into a file cabinet somewhere. When we do that there is no learning, no maturing, and the foundation of trust is compromised. If we did that with our financial records we would have no knowledge of what was real—of how much or how little money was actually at our disposal.

So it is with relationships. There must be balance and a pure reflection of truth.

Healthy reconciliation takes effort. We must acknowledge, accept, adjust, and absorb. It’s not easy, but like anything of real value, it’s worth the cost. If you don’t want to invest, there can be no real and true reconciliation. After all, you get what you pay for.

More Good Days Than Bad, And Here's Why...

-My parents are still living
-I’m far more understanding of why women stay than I used to be
-I’ve learned to discern God’s voice, and I recognize Satan’s tactics
-I learned early on that drugs change a person into someone unrecognizable, and it’s not about me
-In some ways, the justice system is broken, but bad things happen to good people so good people will rise up and fix that which is broken
-Most people are good, but it’s okay to recognize that many people are bad
-Divorce is sometimes unavoidable
-Single moms Rock!
-I should never be afraid to speak the truth – even if others don’t believe me
-People lie – that’s not about me either
-God gave me my children and made me their mother because He trusted me to raise them up and to hide His word in their hearts
-My husband needed to be fired so he could ultimately end up where he is today
-Failure is just one step on the pathway to success
-Being poor made me reliant on God and helped me appreciate the little things
-Friends may only be meant for a season
-“The Church” is not a building
-Loss sucks, but empty rooms can be filled with new stuff – even new friends
-When a child rebels it is NOT always the fault of the parents. God is the perfect father and His kids are a mess. What makes us think our kids should be perfect?
-Marriages have a chance to work when the husband and wife both choose to not leave
-Tough love is hard, but it is sometimes the only way to save your child’s life
-My children may not be in my home, but they are always in my heart
-Whenever I see a “missing child” poster, I stop and pray. I’m grateful for the empathy my experience has given me for families of missing kids
-When I walked the streets looking for my missing child I met wonderful broken people
-I have learned that the early bird really does get the worm
-The homeless may be lost and sick, but they are still human beings and they want dignity
-Strangers have stolen earthly valuables, but they can’t steal my treasures!
-I am exactly like all the other moms who sit in a jail or prison visiting room – I’m a mom who loves her children and there’s no place I won’t go to see them
-There is NO price too high if it means saving a child’s life
-Blood is not thicker than water. The people who are there when you need them – they are your family
-Boundaries are good
-I CAN control the stress in my life!
-Relationships are more important that reputations
-New directions are GOOD
-Satan uses pretty words to confuse God’s kids, but God speaks directly to me. I just have to listen
-I know that no one is so strong that they don’t need a hand now and then
-Illness may slow me down, but I won’t let it stop me

AND…

-Stretch marks are the proof that life goes on!

My life has a TON of broken pieces, but when God’s light shines through those pieces, I’m a kaleidoscope! Broken glass creates beautiful patterns!

THE GOOD DAYS OUTWEIGH THE BAD!

“For God loved the world so much that He gave his only son, so that WHOEVER (that’s ME!) believes in Him should not die, but have eternal life.”

Anniversaries

Anniversaries are interesting. We celebrate some anniversaries and dread others. We hope that certain dates will remind us of the joys we felt or the love we shared when we began a relationship, married, or graduated from school. Sometimes we spend an anniversary celebrating a life remembered or the date we gave up a long and destructive habit. Whatever the anniversary - we remember.

Last week, September 17, was the one year anniversary of the date our then 16-year-old daughter ran away from home and our reality changed again and forever. I thought the day might go by quietly and without much reflection, but I am finding that on that day and each day since, I remember more clearly than the day before how I felt, what I thought, how I cried, and what I feared. The smells of late Summer/early Fall make the memories strong and vivid. The colors of the sky, the earlier sunset, the neighborhood kids making the daily trek to and from school - these are the things that fill the senses every day. The fact that these normal every day occurrences were still happening last year at this time seemed to me like a personal betrayal by the whole world. How could the Earth keep spinning on its axis when my world had stopped? One year later the sights, smells and sounds of this season bring it all back.

In a week and a half we will celebrate the one year anniversary of the miracle that lead to the finding of our daughter, followed by the anniversary of the date we left her in Utah at the place she was loved and nurtured for 7 1/2 months. We will then celebrate the one year anniversary of the date our son was taken to jail, and the first anniversary of the most difficult holiday season I could ever have imagined experiencing. I look forward to the bad memories being replaced by new and happier remembrances. Our lives, however, are changed forever - in so many ways for the better.

A crisis always brings out the best and the worst in all God's children. I am grateful for the kindness of strangers and the words of encouragement that came from people I could never have imagined knowing a year ago. I still marvel at the goodness that rises out of ashes. My family strives daily to recover from the pains inflicted on us by friends and family whose critical words, thoughtless actions, and mean spirited finger pointing made our struggle nearly unbearable. We mourn the loss of relationships we once trusted.

However, we know there is hope. Our daughter is healthy, our son returned home after 9 months in jail, and our middle son has not only survived, but has thrived in the midst of the storm. If broken lives can be rebuilt, so too can broken relationships - that is...if there is the willingness to take responsibility, learn from mistakes, and trim all that is unhealthy.

One year later....there is hope.