I worked a lot of long
hours the past few weeks and the other morning I was grumpy and crabby with my
roommate Jane. Until we train ourselves otherwise, we often take out our
frustrations on those closest to us. We figure they love us and will put up
with our bad behavior. But what about when they don’t?
“I have feelings too,” she
said. “When you do that, it makes me feel bad. You said mean things to me and I
didn’t do anything wrong.” Well it cut like a knife to the heart, but my immediate
response was to get all defensive and instead of apologizing right away, I got
even angrier. I think we get the maddest when we know we’re wrong. No one wants
to be wrong. Why couldn’t she just have ignored it?
But she didn’t. She
confronted me and that was the right thing to do.
How many times have relationships
fallen apart because stabbing words have been ignored rather than confronted?
The hurt turns into a festering, decaying puncture wound that may appear to go
away, but only gets buried for a while and never really gets healed. Finally
all the little punctures and cuts connect and the resultant rotting wound is
nearly irreparable and the original source of the problem is some distant fuzzy
memory.
The source of my anger,
for instance, had nothing to do with Jane, and I think this is often the case. Something
becomes a trigger and we bring emotional responses from an incident in the past
into the present when they don’t belong there.
Learning
to act right is a constant process. Peter tells us, “Now no chastening for the
present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth
the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby”
(Hebrews 12:11).
I was
glad Jane confronted me. She made me see my sin and I felt bad about it. She
didn’t deserve my wrath. We talked. She understood that I was acting out of the
past and was lashing out at something totally not related to her. I told her I
was sorry. She forgave me and I determined to act better.
Sometimes
after we get confronted with our sins, we get all down on ourselves and pitiful,
but the Lord is not one for pity parties. He says, “Lift up the hands which
hang down, and the feeble knees; and make straight paths for your feet, lest
that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed” (Heb
12:12-13). This is a really important point.
When we
get lovingly confronted with our wrongs, we need to choke down our pride and
straighten up our ways so that our relationships can be healed. If we don’t do
this, the scripture says we are lame and could be turned out of the way. If we
value our relationships we don’t want to get turned out of the way.
After our
incident the other day, neither one of us carried any residual bad feelings and
went on to have a great day. Our friendship is peaceful and richer because of
the honesty, boldness and transparencies we share.
Love,
Carolyn
Check out any of my books for an inspirational
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