As you know, this month we’re talking about family and so we have to get into how to practically resolve/ diffuse family conflicts.
Be Honest:
God does not say that you have to lie to reconcile with people. That ain’t biblical. You can still be true to yourself, have a different opinion and be respectful. How the other person reacts…. Is not my concern. I’m only in charge of me.
Be Open
No one is going to be of one mind with me. If I like oxford commas; they write runon sentences. It’s not about agreeing. You can disagree and still reconcile. This is especially important these days as most topics light a fire to the family dinner table.
Be Safe
You can’t reconcile with everyone. If your family makes you physically and/or emotionally unsafe, walk away. For years, the church used to encourage women to go back to their abusive husbands and say that is just the way of the Lord. IT IS NOT. God does not want you to be in harm’s way. He came that you may have life and have it more abundantly.
Use “I” Statements
This phrase comes from therapy community but it communicates an important conflict resolution principle which is, keep it on yourself. For example “I don’t like when you mention my weight at dinner. It makes me feel like you don’t value me or I’m not pretty. It does not communicate any concern for my health. It does the opposite.” You see how that is much different from “ you’re always so mean to me, telling me I can’t afford soda because I need to lose weight, you’re just the worst !”
Pray
The spirit of discernment is essential to resolving conflicts. You may not know just when the right time to approach an issue is. Sometimes the when is just as important as the how and why, when its about reconciliation or resolving conflict.
I hope you can take things tips to heart and practice them. Have a great day.
This month we’re going to be talking about all things family. Whether a family of choice or family of origin, whether they be friend or foe, let’s talk about family and faith. God wants us to have connections with people. No person on this earth is an island, nor designed to live on in isolation. AND NO ONE IS PERFECT. Families have all sorts of issues. They’re not called generational curses for funsies. Where there are people, there will be problems. Let’s talk about it. Let’s talk about where boundaries should be or where there should be a brick wall.
Please know that you and God are responsible for your own life. Talk what I write with a grain of salt. I can only share my experience. Life has ebbs, flows, and changes in circumstances so what may be okay for me today, may not be ok tomorrow. The only thing that doesn’t change is God.
My mother has done something strange but biblical. She sewed together a few of those old timey rice bags and made what looked like a blanket. And lain in it to cry out her sorrows to God. She’s Haitian so when she said something about “levangil sack’la.” I started dying laughing.
This morning, I got on my bible and there in my devotion was an opposite representation of the sackcloth thing. That it was whiny?!
While we have no idea what the biblical principles of sackcloth and ashes was originally for or the method of carrying it out, I totally get it. We are in unprecedented times. We have a global pandemic plus flu season plus BLM plus mass unrest plus election plus supreme court nominee situation and we are surrounded by death. Death of our economy. Death of our routine. Death of actual family and friends. Death of strangers who our lives were touched by. Perhaps indeed it is a time to adorn ourselves in sackloth and cry out for communal healing.
I have way too many allergies to be physically donning anything not made of cotton but there is a tremendous amount of grief that I don today, and a God who is big enough to shoulder the loan if I give it to him.
“Casting all your cares upon Him, because He cares for you” 1 Peter 5:7
I’m giving you permission to day to whine to God all day long. Whine about how if ACA is taken away you will be without insurance as a chronically ill person. Whine about being accosted at every turn just to do your job. Whine about your people being killed by people who are supposedly just doing their job. God sees all and knows all. We only have part of the story. The scene that we are in right now. But I have to believe that there’s a bigger picture. Something more happening now that I can’t see. That this is merely the strain it takes to become a butterfly.
