This week I tried to help a friend mend a broken relationship with one of her dear friends. Relationships are fragile treasures; friends, not things, are the thing we can’t bear to be without. However, friendships can fail for many reasons. Sometimes unintentional, misunderstandings tear relationships apart. Sometimes irresolvable conflicts explode between people causing great damage to all that are near. Sometimes fears learned through hurts in earlier relationships with different people undermine new investments in intimacy with new friends. Other times, a person harms a relationship by cheating or lying. For these and many other reasons, we all have seen friendships, business partnerships, marriages, and family relationships break apart and it is distressing. When a significant relationship fails, a part of us feels like it dies with it. When our relationships break, our heart also breaks. While we grieve, we search for ways to understand what happened. We want to know what went wrong; what was our part and what was their part. We are all sinners so there is enough blame to go around. However, we long to find healing for our broken hearts. The biggest problem after a hurt from a friend is learning to trust or to risk intimacy again. After we have experienced the sting of a relationship that has failed, we question if we should ever place our hearts in danger again.. In our humanness, when any bond fails, we are tempted to give up on all relationships. Apprehension takes over and we place ourselves in isolation so that we will never again be harmed. We are tempted by the delusion that security can be found in isolation. The problem with this strategy, of course, is that God created us to be in relationships and to need one another. Our lives are greatly enriched by our friendships. It is in the context of close relationships that we thrive and grow. So, what do we do when we experience the trauma of a broken relationship? We have to keep fighting and we need to find healing that corresponds to the intensity of the wound. We need to heal so that we can again take the risk to love. How do we do this? We certainly can’t in our own power. We must go to God, go to His word, go to praying, and go to our friends to find healing in God’s grace and faithfulness, and learn to love in new ways. We must allow our broken hearts to reach out again in love.
Look at Psalm 55 and see what God can teach us.
Psalm 55: 1-8, 12-17
Listen to my prayer, O God,
do not ignore my plea;
2 hear me and answer me.
My thoughts trouble me and I am distraught
3 at the voice of the enemy,
at the stares of the wicked;
for they bring down suffering upon me
and revile me in their anger.
4 My heart is in anguish within me;
the terrors of death assail me.
5 Fear and trembling have beset me;
horror has overwhelmed me.
6 I said, “Oh, that I had the wings of a dove!
I would fly away and be at rest—
7 I would flee far away
and stay in the desert;
Selah
8 I would hurry to my place of shelter,
Psalm 55:12-17
12 If an enemy were insulting me,
I could endure it;
if a foe were raising himself against me,
I could hide from him.
13 But it is you, a man like myself,
my companion, my close friend,
14 with whom I once enjoyed sweet fellowship
as we walked with the throng at the house of God.
15 Let death take my enemies by surprise;
let them go down alive to the grave,[a]
for evil finds lodging among them.
16 But I call to God,
and the LORD saves me.
17 Evening, morning and noon
I cry out in distress,
and he hears my voice.
We all know that when a relationship is broken, often to the point that we feel we might not ever repair it, it feels like a death. Our only way out is by grief. As important and necessary as grieving is, we must know that it is a very painful, effort. It is the process of facing the reality of a painful loss and experiencing the strong feelings created by the loss. It is this agonizing process that makes it possible for us to go on with life. David experienced this kind of a loss in his relationship with King Saul. Once a friend and confidant, Saul turned against David and sought to have him killed. By putting his anguish into words, David offers us help in facing our grief over wrecked relationships. David says that the person who is now insulting him and raising himself against him was once his companion, his close friend, a man like himself, with whom he enjoyed sweet fellowship.
So, why is being hurt by an enemy is less painful than being hurt by a friend? Well, when an enemy hurts us, it is what we expect to happen. We are unprepared for hurts from a friend. However, when an enemy hurts us there is no loss of relationship, because we do not have a close relationship with an enemy. When a friend hurts us and the relationship is broken, we have to admit that we have experienced a significant loss.
Often, when we have experienced verbal or physical abuse, or have witnessed it, we can be frightened when we experience anger in ourselves or others. With this in mind, we must remember that David was given an opportunity to kill Saul, but he did not choose to do so. David expressed his anger to God and He asked God to take charge for putting things right. David expresses his anger to God and in doing so, David lets go of his chance to hurt King Saul back… and he chooses not to take matters into his own hands, but instead leaves it in the MUCH STRONGER hands of God.
When you are betrayed, you may experience strong feelings such as fear, anxiety, anguish, sorrow, longing, guilt, self-blame, rage, hatred, confusion, insecurity, depression, vindictiveness, and hopelessness. These feelings need to be acknowledged and expressed in some way …not necessarily with the person involved, but in prayer or with a trusted friend. Putting these emotions into words provides a beginning of the healing from loss. The emotions are there to help us take in the reality and the personal significance of the loss we have experienced. They may show us further losses that we have not yet grieved or resolved. If these feelings are buried, they will be buried alive and can grow into bitterness and paralyzing fear. Access to the feelings that come with grief and healing can only happen in the context of a caring relationship. We are wounded in relationships, we heal in relationships. David says, “I call to God all day and all night. God hears me when I call out to him and he helps me in my distress.” Thank God that He is the God who SEES us and knows US!
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