Someone confronted me today.
I got an email a couple of days ago from someone, wondering if we could meet somewhere to talk. This was not a close friend -- to be honest, it was a pretty casual acquaintance. I hadn't talked to this person in at least a year. We agreed to meet at a local Caribou this afternoon.
About 20 minutes into our conversation, this person said, "I've been angry with you because of how you treated me on two different occasions, and I don't want to be angry with you. So I really need to talk it through with you. Do you mind?"
I gulped and asked this person to please go ahead and tell me how I had hurt them. Over the next 30 minutes, we broke it down. It wasn't easy. I apologized. I asked clarifying questions. I explained myself where necessary. And I really think we left as friends.
I was so impressed with this person's integrity. It would have been so easy to just "let it go..." but this person couldn't. It would have gone against the nature of who she was. She took it upon herself to "make it right" with me by saying some very difficult things. Her spirit was soft, and her words were truthful, and vulnerable.
Today I re-learned a lesson that I have known in my mind for quite some time: When it comes to reconciliation, It's always my turn. Followers of Jesus are instructed to seek forgiveness when we have wronged someone...but we're also instructed to be the first to seek reconcilication when somone has wronged us.
Who has wronged you that you need to set up a meeting with in order to make it right? Who have you wronged that you need to ask forgiveness?
It's always your turn.
About 20 minutes into our conversation, this person said, "I've been angry with you because of how you treated me on two different occasions, and I don't want to be angry with you. So I really need to talk it through with you. Do you mind?"
I gulped and asked this person to please go ahead and tell me how I had hurt them. Over the next 30 minutes, we broke it down. It wasn't easy. I apologized. I asked clarifying questions. I explained myself where necessary. And I really think we left as friends.
I was so impressed with this person's integrity. It would have been so easy to just "let it go..." but this person couldn't. It would have gone against the nature of who she was. She took it upon herself to "make it right" with me by saying some very difficult things. Her spirit was soft, and her words were truthful, and vulnerable.
Today I re-learned a lesson that I have known in my mind for quite some time: When it comes to reconciliation, It's always my turn. Followers of Jesus are instructed to seek forgiveness when we have wronged someone...but we're also instructed to be the first to seek reconcilication when somone has wronged us.
Who has wronged you that you need to set up a meeting with in order to make it right? Who have you wronged that you need to ask forgiveness?
It's always your turn.
posted by Steve W. at 6:08 PM
5 Comments:
Maybe you shoudl go talk to the guy you wanted to punch in the last post :)
Good call, you bastard. ;)
*smirks*
While we are on the topic of punching, can you tell us all about the time you (almost) got the crap beaten out of you in Cloquet?? the sports bar incident I think it was? mmm...yes....
Sports bar? I was 18. It was in a Perkins. And I was scared to death. Thankfully, due to a couple of Cloquet's finest police officers, I averted a sure and sound beating from the likes of roughly 15 cloquet high school students who were somewhat peeved because my loud mouth friend Trish called one of them "rotund." It wasn't pretty.
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