Speaking Truth in Love: 2/18-19/2012
As part of our series on healthy communication in relationships, we looked this weekend at Ephesians 4.25:
Therefore, each of you must put off falsehood, and speak truthfully to your neighbor for we are all members of one body.
Sometimes being members of one body, whether it's a family, or a friendship, or a church, or an office, or a neighborhood, can get tricky. We do all kinds of things to avoid moments when we look each other in the eyes and tell each other the truth. Sometimes other people, other priorities, other wounds, can get in the way of us being honest with one another. Sometimes there are things from long ago that are interrupting honest conversations right now.
As part of our healing from this, Dr. Gary Sweeten encouraged us all to try an exercise:
Write a letter to God without any intention of showing it to anyone else. Write out in detail about some event in your life that caused hurt. Something that wounded you. Write about as much as you can possibly remember. When you are done writing, lay the letter out in front of you (this may be one of those things that's better to have in writing than just on a computer screen). Spend some time with the letter. Sit with it. Pray over the letter. Ask God some questions: How can you heal from the wounds caused by this situation? How could you reach out, and maybe even bless, the other person/s involved in the situation? How can you become a peaceful presence in this relationship or realm of your life?
As you're working through this, remember the promise of Ephesians 4.17-24: It is possible to lose the old ways of doing life and be made new. There's a chance that you have needed to write this kind of letter for a very long time. You may be barely holding onto the hope of new life. But hold on tight.
If you were here this weekend, we are challenging our community to mark the upcoming season of Lent, leading up to Easter, by sacrificing something you love. To give up at least half of something and set aside the money you would spend on the thing you love for a special project. We hope you're game for trying this. We'll try to help you make the most of this initiative as we get closer to Easter and you start having coffee or chocolate withdrawals. For some other great ideas about how to walk towards the cross of Jesus this Easter, check out this post from Rachel Held Evans about things to try this Lent.
