Rebuilding Broken Relationships
Few things in this world hurt like a broken heart. It's the blow that you never see coming: Someone you love rejects you. Somebody you've let into the deepest, most private corners of your heart says or does something to hurt you where you're most vulnerable. A longtime friend turns their back on you.
The broken heart is here to stay, as painful as it is. Our need to connect with other people is hardwired into us. It's part of being human, and it's a bitter reminder of how important our relationships are to us. And that's the heart of the problem. We're forming relationships with people, who act cruelly, sometimes make mistakes, or just go away.
Humans can be tough creatures. Attack my job or finances. I can find a way to pull through. Attack my pride and I grow thicker skin. Attack my health, and I can recover.
Is the solution to harden our hearts against relationships that might disappoint or hurt us, and avoid other people altogether? Are we willing to throw out the joy that relationships can bring to avoid the possibility of pain down the road? Can we find love that doesn't have strings attached? Is it possible to experience love without the fear of loss and hurt, without the fear that we'll be let down in the end? Isn't that the heart of the question? So what's the answer?
Imagine being rebuffed when you make your best attempts at reconciling a broken relationship. What if that broken relationship or should I say relationships happen to involve your own children?
If we've lived and loved long enough, we all know the pain of a broken relationship. We also know the joy of reconciliation when that relationship is mended. Unfortunately, loving someone well and trying to reconcile with them provides no guarantee they will welcome restoration.
When someone refuses to reconcile a broken relationship, I can attest through my own experience that frustration, pain, and self-doubts can grow. The desire to find a way to restore the broken relationship that works intensifies.
Sadly, there is no guaranteed procedure that we can follow to assure restoration of a broken relationship. Sometimes, all we can do is grieve the loss of that relationship. And that is as equally difficult when children have been hurt by divorce or the abandonment of a parent. As it was in the case with my own children. I was the parent that abandoned them.
And that is what Jesus modeled for us. He is the perfect example of one who unselfishly poured out His love to His creatures and offered them the opportunity for reconciliation with their Creator. However, they would have nothing to do with Him.
John records in a single sentence one of the saddest verses in the Bible, the fact that Jesus "came to His own, and His own did not receive him" (John 1:11).
Jesus responded to the rejection of His offer of reconciliation with deep grief and sadness that moved Him to tears and prayer for His people. We see the Son of God's broken heart when He sits outside the walls of Jerusalem and strongly voices: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to you! How often I have wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!" (Matthew 23:37).
A frightening truth that we all must face is the fact that we cannot force someone to love us, no matter what we do. Even if we take appropriate responsibility for harm we've done to them, confess our wrongs against them, and ask for forgiveness, there is no assurance they will respond in kind. They can choose to remain distant.
While an unresolved relationship is deeply disturbing, one of the most freeing truths is that no one has the power to stop us from loving them. And that's all that God calls us to do, to love others the way He has loved us (John 13:34;15:12).
Sadly, there is no such thing as a next step that would make reconciliation work every time. However, at those times when our best efforts at loving are rebuffed, we do have the opportunity to share in Jesus sufferings, to experience His pain and His relentless longing for reconciliation (Philippians 1:29).
We need to guard against a false guilt that assumes we should be able to do something to "fix" every relationship, as if it all depends on us alone. While I've had to take responsibility for my part in a relationship, I can not and must not assume that I am solely responsible for the breach in the relationship.
Instead of holding another person responsible for their choices, I have tended to let people off the hook and blame myself for "not doing enough" or "missing something" that would have been the key to unlocking the relationship.
That kind of thinking is not only unbiblical, and demoralizing but controlling . God never asks us to assume responsibility for others, only ourselves. That needed to be my focus with my children. This line of thinking can be applied by any of us in any relationship.
The heart that God revives is the broken, the contrite, the humble heart. (Matthew 5:4) those who grieve over that which grieves the heart of God, they will experience the comfort that only God can give.
It wasn't until I could grieve over the issues I had in my life, and except responsibility for the things I had done to create my own pain, brokenness of spirit and then accept being comforted, healed and blessed could I move forward with courage, faith, grace, and humility to help in rebuilding the relationship with my children and their healing could begin.
For further information you may reach me by email at richbeyondmeasure@gmail.com or call me toll free at 888-323-8916 option 101.
I am a middle aged caucasin women who lives in Washington State with my husband. I enjoy writing poetry, editorials, and articles in my spare time. I run my own home business in the travel industry, enjoy it and meeting and getting to know others. I am also a mother of 3 grown children, and currently am a grandmother to 7 grandchildren.
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