MEET CHRISTINE

What area in your life is God wanting to transform?

I believe that God has really been putting reconciliation of broken relationships on my heart for the past few years.

RELATIONSHIPS ARE HARD WORK. 

Sometimes I wonder if they are even worth keeping, and often times I just want to give up. However, I hear God’s tender voice in the midst of my pain and He says,

“In all your rebellion, I never abandoned you.”

And so when I reflect on His faithful commitment and His unchanging love, I am compelled to mend the broken relationships in my life. It’s not easy work. How do you reconcile with someone who has no desire to rebuild a relationship? How do you set down your pride to reach out to someone and apologize? I don’t know. I really don’t think you can on your own. I have only ever been able to when God transforms my heart. When He finally takes away my bitterness, when He humbles me to think beyond my selfish comfort, He stirs me to reach out. To send that one text, make that one phone call, or say something first. He is the one who moves through me to fix the brokenness in my life. He changes my perspective to pray for the person I need to reconcile with. I’m working through a process of reconciliation right now and I really struggle with wanting to stay selfish and continuing to ignore my friend because of my own pettiness... I’m currently waiting for my heart to catch up to the righteousness of God, so that I can be gladly obedient to Him.

When it comes to reconciliation, I can say with confidence that the next one always gets easier. Over and over, and in those small steps of obedience, He leads me to conquer mountains of separation and be a part of a community that is striving to be centered around Him.

Just as God never gave up on me, I’m trying not to give up on the people who are called to be my community. God, in His perfection, as the trinity, demonstrates perfect love between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. “We love because He first loved us.” - 1 John 4:19