conflict

If you have a heartbeat, you will have conflict.  No doubt about it.  I used to be terrified of it because I often reacted out of a place of pain.  When we have issues in our life that haven't been addressed, we often respond on the "defense".  Something I have been working on for MONTHS this past year is not doing that. Conflict once made me crumble.  It would ruin my entire day if not my entire week.  One person in particular that I had "silly" conflict with a lot was my Mother in law.  It's a common area when it comes to conflict.  Something about that relationship between a wife and her mother in law is at times difficult.  I was a pretty battered and bruised girl when I got married and I had this idea that Jeremy's family would be MY family.  It did not go as planned or as I thought it would.  It was excruciating for me.  My Mother in law though was very accepting to me and I knew she loved me but I did many things to sabotage the relationship because I did not trust. 

When I began having children, I felt threatened.  I felt like she would not think I was a good Mom or a good Wife.  It would take weeks and months to get over sour words between us.  But finally God began to change ME.  I was able to let go of things quickly and realize she did love me.  We had different ways of handling things and different personalities so we had to learn each other.  It's taken years but now if we have a hiccup, we instantly resolve it.  I love that!

There is so much I could say about this subject because resolving conflict is one of the hardest things for people to do.  It was my hardest thing for sure.  But it's nice to have growth and to see relationships in my family and with my husband change.

This morning I had a conflict that needed to be resolved with someone.  I am not sure if it is resolved on the other end but I do know it is resolved on mine.  Initially I felt attacked but immediately asked God to help me handle this the way HE wanted me to.  I think I passed the test!  There will be plenty more to come my way because that's what life is all about.

I found this and wanted to share it with you! It really spoke to me!

http://www.biblicalresources.info/pages/pastoral/Conflicts/conflict1.html

(And no this was not what I had planned on sharing today! But maybe later! Gotta finish school then we have dance!)