Photo Credit: Internet
Back in October, I told you about a friend of mine that’s been my sister-of-a-different-mother. She reached out to me in a time of need. At the same time, Mr. FixIt came down with Covid and was dreadfully ill and I totally forgot to listen to her message. When I hadn’t responded in a reasonable time, assumptions were made. When she ghosted me, assumptions were made on my part, as well.
After trying unsuccessfully to connect, and knowing her as I do…I backed off and gave her space. I reached out every week or two just to let her know I was thinking of her. Eventually, she started responding but her tone was more like the conversation you might have with someone in the line at the grocery store. But still, I knew she was going through some terribly hard stuff in her personal life, so I practiced grace with my lifelong sister/friend. We practiced grace with each other actually. She could have just walked away permanently.
Finally, I heard from her over the weekend and she asked if we could FaceTime. We selected yesterday. I prayed repeatedly ever since we made the date…asking God to bring me the right words to convey to my friend. To let me be quick to listen and slow to speak. She poured her heart out and spoke her truth. She was devastated that I hadn’t reached out to her during her time of dire need. She felt abandoned. She was confused, hurt, sad, then mad.
I listened carefully. I nodded and agreed with her. I acknowledged her pain. And her frustration and anger. I could see the edges soften a little just getting it off her chest. But I knew we were at a crossroads in our friendship. Neither one of us wanted to end our lifelong bond, but we were unsure of what the other wanted to do. I respectfully corrected a couple of her assumptions which brought some clarity to the situation.
In the end, we professed our love for each other to the bitter end. And we enacted a strategy. Should one of us absolutely NEED the other, we’ve agreed to text “911” and we will drop what we are doing right away and reach out. The crux of our issue was miscommunication. Extending grace with patience and love showed maturity and grace on both our parts…something I feel I’ve just been able to tap into in the last few years.
Life is just entirely too short to waste a minute of it on misunderstandings. I know not all relationships will come together like we did and reconcile with love and grace but it can never hurt to try to practice kindness in our interactions. There will be plenty of opportunities in the coming months to practice grace. Difficult conversations are never easy, but approaching them with grace and kindness will help ease us back toward the give and take of normalcy. This is my prayer, anyway.
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“Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”
Ephesians 4:32 NIV