Relationship building words…

If you are caught up in trying to shift responsibility for your own actions, or if you have been unwilling to confess and repent of your wrongdoings, I urge you to reconsider the path you have chosen. Failure to apologize and seek forgiveness allows the offense to remain a barrier between you and the other person. – Love as a way of life – Gary Chapman

All quotes by Chapman or adapted from Chapman

Let love be more powerful than the wrong done to you.

Simple irritation with someone’s behavior does not call for forgiveness, irritation calls for negotiation. Personality conflicts do not call for forgiveness even though they create tension. Tension calls for conversation, understanding and acceptance of differences not forgiveness. Responding to this tension with lashing out and harsh or condemning  words – now that calls for seeking forgiveness.

When someone has wronged you and refuses to apologize, the challenge is not to forgive them but to release them along with the anger and hurt. If they confess the error and make positive change you then can forgive. If not the consequences of their actions will find them in time without any help from you. Releasing them is very different than forgiving. It does not lead to reconciliation, but it does free you emotionally and spiritually.

Impatience does not change the situation.

Focus on the solution rather than the problem.

My words: It is hard to go through relationships that are like rocky little boats out on a horrid sea. Perseverance is the key. Do not give up. Writing people off is not always the answer. Although limiting your time with them may be a good way to begin some healthy boundaries. We need people in our lives. They teach us many things about who we are. When we see how others are reacting to us that can be a key, a clue to how we behave. On the flip side the way others react is not always a reflection but a representation of the growth needed in their own lives. We know within us which is true for us if we are honest and truly look at what is happening about us and within us in moments like conflict.

Go out and put on LOVE..who can withstand a little sprinkle of that!!;0)

1 Peter 3:8-9