The one who can hurt you the most is usually the one who knows you the best.
Strangers being rude, dismissive and the like hurts for a while, but they’re strangers. When it comes to family and friends, though, if ont dealt with properly the hurt can lead to all kinds of nasty stuff lurking in the background waiting for the opportunity to plunge the relationship into those really painful places.
A sign of healthy relationships is the response to conflict that brings about peace. That is often done through honesty, truth and the greater desire for forgiveness and reconciliation. Indeed for some relationships, there’s a desire for things to be better as a result of that process than was previously the case.
The resort to just ‘forget it’ is an interesting one, because it is not often that the matter has been addressed and resolved when that instruction is given. It might not crop up again for a while, but for sure as long as it lingers in the memory with that tinge of resentfulness or bitterness it has the capacity to poison the well of the relationship.
It pays to expose the matter for what it is and dealing with it can be about honestly assessing that whatever the hurt was the healing has to be greater. The quality of the relationship has to help with that healing process.
Having said that, the most effective conflict resolution in some relationships is to end the relationship.
Hoping that this does not have to be the case, then that desire for what makes for peace does not lead to sweeping things under the carpet. Peace is the fullness of that which helps things to blossom and fulfil its potential. That drive and that desire meets conflict where it occurs, knowing it’s inevitable. Meets the conflict and chooses to resolve it not in a points gaining exercise of who is right, but a heart for what is right.
God help us exercise that peace-making desire when conflict arises.
(Photo by Everton Vila on Unsplash)
For His Name’s Sake
Shalom
C. L. J. Dryden
Life With CD 