Relationships are like Muscles
I want you to imagine for a moment that someone just wronged you. Someone hurt you. Maybe not intentionally, but what that person did really stung. You spend countless hours trying to determine the motive and what your next move ought to be. You create scenarios in your mind, rationalize it, justify your feelings, and even strategize your retaliation. But wait. Should you just ignore them and let it go? Of course not. You should confront them or, better yet, get them back. After all, they hurt you. They bruised your ego. Maybe they even damaged your sense of self-worth.
Perhaps not.
Has this happened to you? If you’re breathing, then it has. So what do you do? How can you make it better, not make it worse, solve the problem, and move on? How can you move on with dignity intact or, better yet, restore the relationship and make everything all better?
There is a little secret to it. And it’s all how you see the other person. What if you saw the other person as someone who needed just as much grace and love as you do? Because, like I said, if you’re breathing, then you have been wronged—meaning you have wronged another person. So why not consider treating another person the way you would want to be treated? Yes, even when they have wronged you in some way.
It is far easier to allow the desire to get back at someone to fester in your heart than to muster up the courage and strength to calmly and nicely confront them. It’s easier to place all the blame on another person than accept any responsibility yourself. But the reality is, friends, that we need relationships. We need other people in our lives. But that sometimes means those relationships struggle. That doesn’t mean we give up. Instead, it means we dig in and do everything we can to find common ground and reconciliation. It’s hard, and it’s humbling, but it’s necessary.
Relationships are like muscles. The more you work on them, the stronger they become. Let them go, and they will atrophy—forgetting how to be used and thus become ineffective and weak. But working those muscles means you have to admit they need to be stronger. It means you have to put the work in—the hard work of becoming stronger.
So while the secret to restoring relationships is simple, it is far from easy. It requires us to be humble, gentle, and loving towards others the same way we would want people to be toward us. It requires the right kind of confrontation and patience to seek reconciliation amid anger, resentment and hurt.
But I promise you, if you put the work in, you will see results.
Challenges/Points:
Just as you have been hurt, you, more than likely, have hurt others or damaged relationships.
Restoring relationships begins with your desire to treat another person—no matter how they treat you—the way you would like to be treated.
Strong relationships are like muscles. Do the hard work and make them stronger.
Questions:
Take a minute today and think about the status of your relationships. Who has hurt you?
What was your response to being hurt?
In light of what you just read, what steps can you take to try and restore the relationship?
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