conflict resolution

Strength

/ Jaimie / 4 Comments

strength

One thing I’ve learned about myself over the years is that fear grows in dark places deep within when I’m not paying attention.  I particularly find this in the context of relationships. The husband and I have a rough day and I turn suddenly I’m on the bridge of the Enterprise yelling “Shields up! Prepare for battle! I’ll take the conn!” A small offense turns into an insurmountable obstacle and I fight hard to control every detail and make it all work out the way I see fit. I’m sure you can see that there are obvious flaws in this strategy. I do this out of fear. I’ve been hurt before and rather and than take the risk of being hurt again, I grab the guns and dig in.

Thankfully, there is grace that comes along and shines a little light on it, revealing to me the reality of this monstrous thing that’s been choking me slowly. I read a quote from Francis Frangipane this week that explains it perfectly. “We pray, “Lord, change me.” To answer that prayer, He will often allow circumstances or people to offend us. Our fleshly reaction illuminates the specific area where we need to grow. Thus, the Lord initiates change by offending the area of our soul He seeks to transform. He does not expect us to merely survive this adversity but become Christlike in it.”

The truth is that fear and self-preservation rarely lead to positive outcomes. True strength is being able to stand in spite of fear and love anyway. True strength is in moving beyond the things that paralyze us and give of ourselves even when it hurts. Meg Cabot said, “Courage is not the absence of fear but rather the judgment that something is more important than fear; The brave may not live forever but the cautious do not live at all.”

Today I encourage you to live! Take the risk and do that thing that makes you afraid. Go all in! If something offends you, let it go. If you’re hurting, pray. There is a Comforter who is more than able to turn ashes into beauty and He wants to fight that battle for you. He wants you to overcome. March on into the fray armed with His strength and you will find your freedom.

“Oh my soul, march on with strength!” Judges 5:21

Signs, Confusion and Forever

/ Jaimie / 1 Comment

I confess, I’ve been known to take a shortcut or two. Time is a precious commodity in my life. Somehow, I’m convinced that I have less of it than most people, so occasionally, I improvise. Usually, it gets the job done so I don’t sweat the small stuff.

Still, there are suggested uses provided by manufacturers for a reason. This becomes apparent when I grab my favorite sweater out of the dryer only to realize it now needs to be passed down to an 8-year-old since it was intended to dry flat. Just like that, it’s gone.

Tag

I must also confess that I’ve never taken the time to figure those dumb laundry labels out. When I do take the time to read the label, I’m greeted with Pictionary instead of language. I know I could easily look up their meanings, but ‘ain’t nobody got time for that’. So I guess and just wing it. It’s usually just fine, but not always…

But maybe the world operates on symbols and not just words. I get it in some cases. Road signs could become very tedious if we clearly spelled out the meaning on everyone. How many accidents would be blamed on “I was trying to read the sign”? Some things you just have to make an effort to learn. sign

I haven’t decided which category marriage falls into yet. Sometimes I find myself trying to decode the symbols and I just know I’m shrinking a sweater. I wish we could just find a way to clearly spell it all out so there would never be any confusion. Yet, there’s a lot of wisdom in NOT saying everything that pops into your head in the heat of argument. 

So maybe it’s just part of the adventure. There’s an art to marital communication. It’s a blend of language and charades, verbal and non-verbal, argue and make up.

Sure, I’m going to mess up A LOT, but you better believe I’m going to keep trying. I may be far from perfect, but forever is always worth the effort.