The Rift
A few years ago, I had a strained relationship with my parents. I was in a romantic relationship that they didn’t think was a good idea. As the oldest child who sought approval from her parents, I was stuck between wanting to do what I wanted as a young adult and wanting to please them. For those two years, I could feel the rift in our relationship. I avoided the subject like the plague and when it was brought up, it usually ended in an argument. If there were things going well in the relationship, I didn’t tell them. If there were things I was struggling with, they didn’t know. The lack of approval hurt, and while we still had good times together, it felt off.
Eventually, this guy and I broke it off. My parents and I didn’t talk much about that either when it happened (because I didn’t tell them), but our relationship slowly started healing. Because he wasn’t a sore subject or something I felt like hiding anymore, I became more open with them again. At some point, we talked about everything that happened and cleared the air. We all were able to express how we felt. We’ve since had many conversations about that time. They were right in the end, by the way.
So why am I talking about this? And what is a rift? A rift is a crack, break, etc. in something. I call this time in our relationship a rift because that’s exactly what it was. Something fell from the sky, made a crack, and wedged itself in. These rifts aren’t healthy. That little feeling in your gut that something is wrong in a relationship? It’s probably not far from the truth. And the longer we ignore it, the more we prolong the pain and hurt.
Friends, this is no doubt a sore subject for some of us. Some of us may have a strained relationship with our parents, some of us haven’t talked to our sibling in years, some of us got into a fight with that friend and now we don’t speak anymore. I’m asking that we evaluate our relationships and see - do you have any rifts? What happened weeks, months, years ago that is still eating away at you?
Let’s say you do have a rift. Start with just reflecting on that relationship. Can you pinpoint when that meteor fell from the sky and cracked your relationship? Now, is this a rift that should or needs to be restored? There are some relationships that are so toxic, so hurtful, so abusive that they need to stay broken. In that case, you still need to heal (on your own), but the relationship does not need to continue. For those relationships that could be healed, could you reach out to that person? It may be time to at least talk about what happened. I guarantee they feel the rift too.
Don’t let rifts eat away at you. Forgive, ask for forgiveness, and restore when you can.
Challenges/Points:
Relationship rifts are cracks that cause a strain in our relationship, something that feels off and painful.
If we look into our past, we are almost always guaranteed to find a relationship that has been hurt or broken.
If you can pinpoint a rift in a relationship, reflect and think about it. Is this a relationship that could be restored?
Questions:
Can you pinpoint any strained relationships in your life?
What would it look like to reach out to that person?
What have you done in the past when you’ve had a rift?
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