When the Smoke and Mirrors are Removed...

    I'm not a big fan of confrontation.  In fact most of the time when someone hurts me, I try to sweep it under the rug as quickly as possible and pretend like nothings wrong.......before scurrying away as far and as fast as I can. In all honesty I would pretty much rather just take the hit and  deal with hurt feelings myself, than be honest enough to tell someone they did me wrong.  I've even been known to bend over backwards to try and make things okay in my relationships, even if it means I go to bed at night crying myself to sleep over a repeated hurtful action that a "friend" does, without them ever knowing anythings wrong.  I use to think this made me the bigger person....but today, in church, I got a Holy Spirit Spanking and I realized a thing or two about myself when it comes to this.

  For one thing....pretending like there isn't a problem when there is..doesn't make me a good or better person, in fact it only makes me a liar...a fake, a phony.  On top of that, it's pretty obvious that the reason why I don't confront people is because I'm afraid that if I do, they won't understand me and will just reject me.  Thus my reason for avoiding conflict is not because I'm such a stand up person whose worried about our relationship, but rather cause I'm a self-centered coward  whose afraid of rejection.  Then, my lack of honesty only goes to show just how arrogant and hypocritical I can be, since I don't even bother to share my feelings with others because I assume how they will react and what they will say in response.  What part of that makes me a bigger person?!?!

  Now I'm not saying that I need to go out and tell every person in my life that's ever done anything wrong to me that they hurt me.  I don't even think I could remember every wrong that's ever happened.  But the point is, I need to realize that "taking the high road" doesn't mean avoiding confrontation.  Conflict is going to happen...people are going to hurt me....but things can only be made right when I am willing to communicate....and bring issues into the light.  Of course that needs to be done in a prayerful and considerate way...but none the less....sometimes, it needs to be done...and that's something I need to work on.

  Kind of a hard lesson for me this week....but as they say.......what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.