Relationships

How fragile are relationships....my mother and fathers marriage lasted over 50 years, that makes them real gems of perseverance and hope. Their marriage was not without its difficulties, on a couple of different occasions they almost got a divorce, I remember the confusion of those times and the pain I felt as a young boy trying to figure what I had done to cause the problem that my parents were having. This perspective is so typical of young children when they see their parents struggle within their marriage.

Well my parents never did divorce and continued on through the years to make the choices for commitment that led them to the fifty year mark, truly an amazing mile stone in marriage.

Why do I bring up this topic today?

Tonight I found out about a couple that my wife and I knew many years ago with whom we have recently been in touch with again that are now in the process of possibly getting a divorce. When I found this out I was speechless, for those that know me, being speechless is not a common thing for me, I was grieved, overwhelmed and just wanting to reach out and help.

How does this happen, what do we do that leads to broken relationships?

Although the circumstances vary and are complicated that lead to broken relationship what is at the core of the issues and complications that lead to broken relationships is simple.

Back to my conversation with my friend;

In the midst of the conversation with my friend I found myself being stirred regarding a friendship I and my wife have with a couple here in our city. We have wanted to see them for a while but circumstances being what they have, has not allowed that to happen. Over the process of time I recently found myself being offended by what appeared to be a lack of mutual concern for the relationship by this couple, this lead me down to the twisting maze of the victim/poor me mentality. By the time I was done going through this maze I was ready to "give them a piece of my mind" regarding their lack of effort to at least maintain the relationship.....ah the victim always seems to be so right, at least to themselves.

Well as things would have it I happened to be able to have lunch with the husband and found out about all the challenges that they are having as a family and as he spoke I felt extremely selfish and stupid, to say the least, for my self-righteous victim mentality, and that I a pastor, a man of God, a.......fool, had made a terrible and yet simple mistake that could of led to a broken relationship with some precious people whom I admire and love.

So where does this episode of my life lead to? To the simple beginning of all relationship breakdowns; self, and the deifying of self in any relationship. Thats where it all simply comes down to, it all begins with some one in the relationship deifying there need or want as supremely important above everything and everyone else. I use the word 'deifying' because of the way we all fawn over and seem to place above and before everything else OURSELF. All to often when this happens we don't even realize it because it seems that we are just so right in our understanding and knowledge of the assumed relationship difficulty.

Jesus is the master of relationship building and he proved it by allowing himself to be crucified so that we might have a restored relationship with our heavenly Father, that pretty much demonstrates to us what we must do with our deified selfs and how we can at least begin to see good relationship start in our lives and or be restored in our lives.

Just a thought or two for us as we journey together.