oh my goodness. relationships are messy.

once a priest said this in his sermon, and the way his voice sounded exasperated yet understanding still sticks with me. how hard of a time we have relating to each other, living with each other, forming bonds or not forming bonds, developing social skills with one another. if we're lucky, learning patience, humility, grace, humor, gratitude, selflessness, and boundless freedom from one another. if we're not so lucky, we can allow ourselves to become isolated, hateful, selfish, intolerant, unforgiving, hard. these things are easy to succumb to. they're easy to channel, easy to learn, easy to develop. it's the lucky things that are the hard things, the things that matter, the things that point us to a higher reality. the things that bring us to a deeper connection, a deeper self-awareness, a deeper truth. i would not know the character of god if i did not know the difference between being patient and being impatient. the difference between love and hatred. what it feels like when someone responds with a kind word instead of a cutting one. what it looks like when someone sacrifices something for me that they needed.

we are relational people. if we weren't, we would never understand lofty ideas like peace and love and humility. we wouldn't know what those things felt like. we wouldn't understand that they feel so good that sometimes it's hard to define them with words. and those things feel pretty incredible. they're hard, but if something isn't hard, it's probably not worth it.

we forget. we take the easy way. we let our own hurts and fears and pains guide our steps. and we often miss it. we miss the beautiful opportunity that has been presented to us. we lose out on the chance to stretch our boundaries of grace for one another because we refuse to accept another person's brokenness. and we push. we push and push until those hurtful feelings are far away from us. instead of learning to embrace them, using a vocabulary that includes things like 'in spite of' or 'regardless of' we send them as far away as we can. because we think our grace should only go so far. i forgive you, but i draw the line here. i offer you grace, but i'm sending it over this wall i've built between us. we all do it.

so my question is where god draws the line. where does christ say, 'i've forgiven you, but you are no longer mine'. 'i give grace to you, but our relationship, our community together has been broken'. does he? is there a day when the father has locked the doors and closed all the blinds upon hearing that his prodigal son has returned? and if god doesn't do that, if god doesn't ever stop his outpouring of love and grace, then does that mean we are allowed to stop it? does that mean the 'enough is enough' mentality is acceptable for us to use? and how is this different from giving in? being a pushover?

i want to offer endless grace to each and every person who wrongs me. because i understand that brokenness. because i know that as painful as it is, working through that hurt, embracing it, is the way to go. and so many times, it's not even that i walk away or embrace the hurt. but rather i cut off the situation and ignore it as much as i can. i let it slide. i don't actively seek for reconciliation. and i don't outright block it out of my life.

these are two ways of dealing with conflict. we either passively let it pass or actively seek revenge. jesus did neither. time and again, jesus taught us a third way to handle situations. someone smacks you? don't smack him back. don't walk away. turn to him and give him your other cheek. force him to awknowledge that you are a human being. you do not deserve to be treated this way. a solider is forcing you to carry his pack a mile? fine. carry it. carry it two miles. not because you're nice, but because there are laws against forcing someone to carry your stuff for longer than a mile. do things differently.

well thats a rambling. these things just consume my thoughts. i want to embrace pain in my life. i want to offer others a shot of redemption. i want to feel deeply and think long and hard and bend myself in ways i didn't think i would ever move.

because relationships are messy. and i could avoid them. i could avenge wrongs. but i want to learn as much as i can here about the character of god. i want to learn how to continue to send my life into a higher reality. to understand a deeper truth, to see things change and to know humility. to offer grace. to bring peace. to be christ.