Reconciliation

You want everything to go right, then suddenly life takes a left turn. Unexpected, unplanned and certainly something that you wish to avoid, but unfortunately it collides into your otherwise neatly planned and safe world. Like a car accident, you are fortunate to walk away with only a scratch, so you pray.

What is this force that can sideline some while others can be tempted to grow cold and bitter?

It's call an offense.

It can start off with a minor disagreement or difference in opinion or taking an opposing view point. Then something changes and something that at first seems trivial becomes a looming mountain. The initial sting of an offense sends you reeling, off balance and uncertain how to restore the peace you once enjoyed between friends or family members.

Now, it seems like an out all war of a heated words of who said what and why.

Proverbs 18:19 reads in the NLT, "An offended friend is harder to win back than a fortified city. Arguments separate friends like a gate locked with bars."

Most offenses start with broken lines of communication. Something gets lost in the translation with words being omitted or instructions not clear or even confusing. This type of offense was not done deliberately to hurt or to wound. Simply, something in the conversation was overlooked and the gaps were filled in by the other parties' expectations, thoughts or ideas on the situation.

Trying to clear the matter up can be just as difficult as it is explaining what went wrong without the "arguments" that can ensue.

Perhaps the greatest challenge in letting go of an offense is when you don't understand why the person became offended in the first place. And worse yet, the sinking feeling you are about lose a relationship spiraling down into something dark and disastrous.

You can't fix an offense, but only release it into the hands of God who gives us the power to be ministers of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:18). We have the choice to forgive regardless to how the other individual responds. When we are free to forgive, we are indeed free from the sting of an offense. And true restoration begins, again.