Recently, I have been struggling with what to share about a friendship of mine that was lost and the testimony that can be brought through that. I wrote one piece, that talks more about the silent treatment but God steered me in a different direction over the last week of what should be shared first. The above line “Make things right as far as they depend on you. Always.” is one that I wrote in the first piece and starting with that here. I should break this all down for you into shorter posts, but I am not going to.
I went to a conference in February and it was an awakening experience for me on many levels. One of the speakers on the last night spoke about valuing consecration more than preparation. He spoke about breaking through the delusion of the culture Christian by bringing reality and urgency. One suggestion he made for doing this is to walk up to someone on Sunday at church and instead of doing the typical small talk ask “When was the last time your grandchildren were in church?” Doing things like this are ways to pierce the deception that things are better than they are. He later got to a message that was one of the most eye-opening things to me. It is pretty obvious, but something we probably don’t think about. He spoke of the quality of our friendships and how this is a condition of Jesus. He jokingly said sometimes he wished it were any other condition. Then he said, “If you are at the altar and have a grudge with someone in the room, you might as well turn around and go work that out.” It makes complete sense, like I said obvious, but do we do it?
I am sure we all know some people within our churches that have some drama. We ignore it or we may recognize that the two don’t even speak or meet eyes when they cross paths, but we also do nothing. I mean what can we do? There are always going to be people we just don’t like. Maybe they don’t have the same views as us or they are friends with someone you don’t like, so you just don’t even acknowledge them. Or what about that person you have some beef with from 10 years ago? Or the family member you got into with over politics on Facebook and now you don’t speak. You still have to love them. And again, you still have to make things right with them as far as it depends on you. It is a condition of Jesus.
I am starting with sharing this story because today I still didn’t know how to wrap up the two pieces I have written, so I went to the Chapel and opened the Bible. It opened to Matthew chapter 5. I saw The Beatitudes on the page, the verses about salt & light, loving your enemies - some of my favorite verses were opened right in front of me on the two pages. Then my eyes landed on Matthew 5:21 - 26:
“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire. So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison. Truly, I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.”
There it is right there. Words I have read many times and ones that have echoed in my head since that conference, but what was it speaking to me now? What makes them even more powerful to me is that they are Jesus’ words. This goes back to the focus of performance versus presence which was also spoken about at the conference and is something I have been trying to focus on recently. The last communion Sunday this was on my mind and I tried to discern, is there anybody in this room I need to make peace with, reminding myself that otherwise I am not worthy of going up to that altar. It would just be a performance at that point - to take in the bread and the cup and say I believe in the name of Jesus yet I am holding a grudge with someone behind me.
Jesus is talking about peace. He is letting us know that God will judge those who live in discord. While he specifically mentions murder, he swiftly emphasizes that the underlying motives leading to murder are equally condemnable - anger, and disharmony. Remember Roman 12:8, If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.
I believe a key strategy for navigating life successfully is the ability to hold two things at once. Embracing the capacity to balance seemingly opposing qualities. Things like holding onto conviction while also embodying love, maintaining conviction alongside humility, pursuing truth while extending grace, seeking justice tempered with mercy, offering forgiveness while upholding accountability, and intertwining faith with action.
Today, I want to talk about loss and two things to hold simultaneously: pain and compassion. Remembering that the root of both of those things is love.
Particularly I want to talk about pain and compassion when thinking about the loss of some form of friendship that involves a falling out of sorts. We all have those friendships that just fizzle out or it is just a life transition - one person gets married, one person is having kids, one person moves away. Those are not the ones I am referring to. I mean when a friendship or a relationship falls apart or someone just disappears and decides you aren’t friends anymore. We tend to do one of two things: we blame the other person and point out all the wrong things about them, or we turn it inward and think we must be to blame and something is wrong with us. By doing this we dehumanize the situation. When we do the first, we eradicate the beauty of that person’s humanness and messiness. And when we do the latter, we are assigning our worth or value to only one person.
Regardless of the choice we make between the two options, we overlook the reality of genuine pain and the necessity to grieve it properly. Grieving is indeed work, yet it is through this process that we find empowerment, restoration, and redemption. Engaging in the essential work of grieving enables us to heal and reclaim what was lost.
I lost a friendship one time that deeply impacted me. This person was more than a friend; they felt like family, a significant part of my life. The end of our friendship was on her terms and it was anything but graceful. The situation itself was traumatic for me and happened immediately following another trauma; I was already in a place of shock and confusion still reeling from one devastation when this friendship crumbled.
Some of you have probably heard or read Tyler Perry’s tree analogy of people. It basically categorizes people in our lives as leaves, branches, or roots. The leaves are temporary, providing only temporary shade or support. When the season changes, they are unable to provide consistent or reliable assistance. The branches are stronger than leaves but still can be fragile, branch people may offer support during most seasons but break away in tough times. Now, the roots of a tree, these individuals are invaluable and rare. They provide unwavering support, nourishment, and stability, even in the face of storms. Their presence is often subtle, yet essential for our growth and well-being. Trees typically have way more leaves and branches than they do roots, but the roots are what grow the tree.
This person I had a falling out with hadn’t grown with me for enough time for me to see that if I took another step they were going to break right off. Just like a branch would if I put more trust in it than I should. Where we get in trouble is where we think a leaf or a branch is a root. Our root people are what keep us safe and secure, they give us life and support. There were signs that maybe she wasn't the most trustworthy confidant, but I overlooked them. I overlooked how she spoke of others, thinking I was different. Someone I cared deeply for was even trying to warn me and I would say, “but she’s not like that with me. She cares about me and wouldn’t hurt me like that.” What I didn’t see is that she was like that with me and was greatly impacting another relationship of mine in destructive ways. My tendency to only want to see the best in others even when I know the worst of them is what got me in trouble here (as it often has). My heart deceived me that if she was having conversations about me without my knowledge it was only to try to protect me or support me in some way. The truth I know now is that this person was not safe for me at that point in time, and by “me” I mean a piece of my life that was so sacred and special to me was not safe with this person’s influence, yet I chose to be ignorant. I thought I could outsmart the deception. Although, I had become more cautious about what was being shared with her without directly confronting her. I hid pieces of my heart and withheld things that likely also led to confusion for her. I also didn’t share with her what I felt God was telling me. It would sound crazy and I was just going to pretend to be dumb and oblivious to what was happening, but that backfired. Telling myself that quote, “One sign of maturity is having a lot to say but learning to remain silent in front of fools.” But I had not truly remained silent, I had played dumb and pretended to agree with things I knew were not accurate or full-truths. This led people to feed me additional information that led me to be so confused that I didn’t even know what was true anymore and began to believe things that had no logic behind them. I had turned myself into the fool. I am saying this because I want to acknowledge right up front there were things I did that were out of character for me and this played a piece in what orchestrated.
I remember my mind being so clouded and I recall some of the exact thoughts that ran through my head the last time I was with this person, defenses really, but I didn’t say them. Choppy words and bits spilled out that didn’t convey anything I was trying to say. Everything was being misinterpreted, my head was hurting. I was confused. I was frightened. I was not okay.
The situation was messy. I think for all of us, our messiness is when our protection mode turns on. I have often said that I think one of the enemy’s greatest tactics to get to us is through our children and us wanting to protect them. This is true, but also just with anyone we care about or even when our own self-preservation instincts kick in. It sparks that fight or flight mode. Or in my case, freak out.
Every human faces betrayal in their lives and when this happens we assume it has to be one person’s fault and we want to assign blame to loss. If this loss happened, it's because of you, or it’s because of them. I’m not enough to fight for. They never cared about me. We often assume negative things about the other person, about their thoughts, actions, and responses, leading to a sense of threat. When triggered, our brains perceive threats in everything, skewing our interpretation of reality, especially within relationships. Even if someone lays out their perspective clearly, we won’t hear it when we are in this state. Pain defies our logic.
There were things done to intentionally confuse me and manipulate situations that made me feel deeply betrayed. Despite moral and principle violations by this person, there was still a human behind it, likely experiencing significant pain themselves, perhaps unaware of their actions. I didn’t recognize this at first. As it was unfolding and for some time following, I assumed all these things, trying to assign meaning behind something that is just part of life. All the things I assumed were where the real lies were: it wasn’t all the other person’s fault, it wasn’t all my fault, it didn’t mean the person never cared about me. Once I was able to come out of the fog of believing these things, I had to grieve what was lost and acknowledge there was loss. The things I am telling you now and my understanding of the whole situation didn’t come immediately. Allowing myself to actually grieve this loss, I no longer needed to define myself or the other person as good or bad. I was able to re-affirm my own self-worth and personal identity. The identity I have through Christ.
It is never about denying the pain and when we put someone in that state of purgatory that is what we are doing. Instead, we must embrace the reality of it while also holding onto the love that existed. Again, holding two things together.
The importance of grief is so often overlooked. It is through grief we can find restoration and redemption. We can find humility and empowerment. In processing my own pain and grief, I had to strive to maintain compassion for the other person. Through this healing, it also meant I had to acknowledge my own role in my suffering.
I did not do a good job of controlling how I responded to things that were sent to destroy my peace. I did the opposite of good, to be honest. I ripped my peace apart even more than anyone else had. To restore that, I had to do a lot of work on my own and I had to validate my own pain and experiences. This involved acknowledging and validating my own feelings, seeing a bigger picture, recognizing the humanity of the other person, and finding compassion and forgiveness for both them and myself. Clearing away the clutter of the pain, the questions, the trying to understand every piece of it, there was space for me to remember the love they did bring to my life.
When someone is dealing with a painful experience, humans have a tendency to want to give people that toxic advice of just “let go”. This can imply to forget something painful for us or we can hear that it isn’t worth processing. This isn't what God asks of us. Instead, we're called to surrender our pain to Him, allowing Him to guide us through the healing process. It's about letting go and letting God work in our lives. As I wrote, when this friendship crumbled I was already dealing with the pain of another relationship ending. Part of what set me off is because I was being told to just let something go, move on - it was never that I wanted someone else to change the circumstance of what was, but I wanted the people I cared for to validate my experience and my pain. I wanted them to have compassion over my circumstances. Instead, I felt that they were telling me to accept things that were not morally acceptable to me and let them go without any empathy or attempt to understand.
I was giving so much power to people that didn’t understand my feelings or thoughts. I was letting them make me feel as though I did not matter. God never tells us to just forget about our pain. Just forget about it and move on. He tells us to surrender it to him. There is a big difference between “let go” and “let go and let God”. And God will always acknowledge our pain, and through him, we can be reminded that that pain doesn’t define us. He does.
Part of the issue is that I was allowing the other person to validate my experience from a subjective standpoint. I was looking for compassion outside of God. I was allowing another person’s actions or inactions to define my worth. I was misinterpreting words and actions. Assuming thoughts. And this likely was happening on the opposite side as well. Because I was being told to just move on, and let something go; I was hearing that my pain wasn’t important and wasn’t significant to them. There were decisions made to cut me out completely when I didn’t accept this and they put the relationship in a limbo state, I saw myself as having to have something so wrong with me for two back-to-back scenarios of people abandoning me and being unwilling to love me to occur. I became resentful of these people, thinking worse-case scenarios. I was not seeing their humanity, or my own, until I chose to revisit it.
You know this person probably did not mean at all that my pain wasn’t real and probably did not see the additional hurt that I was feeling from interrupting things that way. People can come across so different from what they are meaning on the inside. Even if someone did not mean something a certain way, we still need to validate that it was still painful for us. We can’t do this if we are only pointing fingers or internalizing. We often assume we understand precisely what someone intended and how it impacted us or caused us pain. Yet, embracing humility involves acknowledging that we may not know the full story, nor do we know everything the other person was thinking or feeling, while at the same time articulating what our observations were and things that felt true for us, pieces that were very real for our experience. And doing this all while remembering it is very likely that both people were so clouded by misunderstandings and lacked clarity on certain aspects.
We tend to confine past relationships like this to purgatory, sometimes we even do this before a relationship completely ends. Once they do end, we lock them away in our minds, deeming them as too painful to revisit. Or label the person as “toxic”, “crazy”, or “bad”. Sometimes it is ourselves we put the label on. It’s common to do one or the other.
Often, we see things in black and white—either remembering the greatness of a friendship or how traumatic it was. When we do this we overlook the opportunity to reflect - cherishing the moments that were shared and we don’t allow ourselves to see the growth and resilience displayed by the other person. Now, I'm grateful for the friendship I had with this person, even though it's ended. Reflecting on our lives, I realize we're on different paths and we embody different kinds of love.
To get to this point, I had to acknowledge that there were moments of healthy connection between us, where we shared vulnerabilities, pain, and joyful experiences. Despite the painful ending, I realized that love was present in those moments. Revisiting these memories helped me reconnect with the love that had always been there, rebuilding my confidence and hope. It also tore down those walls of self-protection, allowing me to embrace love in future relationships and fully experience love in my current ones.
Only by allowing ourselves to grieve and accept can we move forward. Dwelling on anger and hurt hinders our ability to envision a future. What I mean here isn’t just a future of earthly friendship or coming back together and being the best of friends again. It is about having an eternal perspective that at one point in time, we shared memories that we may one day celebrate together after this life. Losing this perspective means losing hope for those moments when we reminisce together in a realm beyond our current understanding.
But there still is an earthly piece to it as well. Whether it is this friendship, another friendship lost, or even a romantic relationship that ended, I can remember that yes, there were times when it was wonderful and times when it did not feel safe, and we separated but what is redemptively beautiful is that possibly happens here on earth where I also get to have encounters with these people that reflect love.
I still had faith through all this, but as I said it had been clouded. In some ways, I could say the enemy won - at least in moments, but that would be saying that the battle is over. It’s not, and when it is, he won’t be the winner. The enemy’s goal is to make you confused - to turn you away from the light, from truth. As Jesus calls him, he is the “father of lies”. Go back to the beginning, to the fall in the Garden of Eden. He didn’t exactly flat-out lie, he told half-truths which confused Eve and made her think he could question God. I have had people do this to me, I am sure you have had this done to you. Or maybe we have done it at some point in time? When people do this their heart may deceive them to think it is only with the best of intentions, but to put it simply: it’s wrong, it’s sinful, it is deceit.
I am going to try to wrap this up now by summarizing all the above.
There was real betrayal in my story and every human faces betrayal in life. When that happens we assume it has to be one person’s fault. We want to assign blame to loss. Meaning to it. If this loss happened, it's because of you, or it’s because of them. Or I’m not enough to fight for. Or they never cared about me. These are all just lies. Lies that the enemy wants you to believe.
There are times when a friend or loved one does something that is incredibly violating and destructive, something they need to be held accountable for. You can still do this process and find compassion in the pain, and beauty in the mess, even when that person is at the total opposite place with it and is unwilling to accept any accountability.
For me, this was a devastating betrayal that weaponized vulnerable pieces of my life in order to manipulate a situation for someone else’s benefit and it left me shattered. The days, weeks, and months following I was constantly questioning how someone I considered family could lack compassion during the time I was going through. The betrayals following that, that still follow that, do not make it easy; they only add to the pain, making it harder to move on. But I have taught myself where I have pain, I can have even more compassion.
I also acknowledge that the other person likely feels betrayed by me. When there's messiness and disconnection, we need to recognize that both people likely feel misunderstood and experienced pain. It is also important to think about the role you played in it. If possible, approach the conversation with the mindset of acknowledging your contribution, saying something like, "I know I played a part in creating this situation, and my role was..." Taking this stance demonstrates a commitment to growth and taking ownership of your actions. Consider how your pain influenced the dynamics of our relationship, even if it ended on their terms.
You know, that’s what friendships truly are, acknowledging that love endures even if the dynamics of the relationship change. It is recognizing the value of the changes and understanding how they contribute to our personal narratives. This is truly a reflection - seeing how someone added to my life, acknowledging their impact as a precious gift and expressing gratitude for the love they had the capacity to reflect.
Again, reflect. I wrote about a reflection of the cross and I recently listened to a podcast that emphasized this same concept. Using the word reflect is intentional because love in and of itself is something we are reflecting from something much bigger than ourselves. Love is a reflection of the nature of God. The love I want to reflect in this world is just that. So if we surrender ourselves to God, the love we reflect should be abundant, unwavering. But you can only give away what you have.
Back to that tree analogy. I’m more of a flower girl myself. and I love peonies. I have grown most of mine from bare root and seeing them emerge and come up each spring brings me great joy. The flowers from peonies are beautiful, they smell lovely, but they only last a short time in early spring. The petals slowly fall off, yet when they are there they are beautiful. The steams and leaves stick around a bit longer, but they disappear each winter too. Everything above the surface dies back in the colder weather, but during those cold months, they are very much alive underground, thriving, growing, and expanding. Each year so much growth happens that every spring the stems and bubs that grow are more abundant than the year before. That's how I see my roots, when everything else was stripped off, God and these people remained. They helped me grow, they fed me, and because of them I am able to appreciate the beauty even in the things that eventually die.
I have been honest about the state I was in when the friendship I wrote about fell apart; I was confused, scared, in pain - what was going on in my life was heavy. I am certain I exhausted the other person in the days leading up to what occurred, I was exhausted myself. For a leaf or a branch, our pain and exhaustion are going to be too heavy. They are not going to give us life and they are not going to offer support. Our roots will, no matter how freakin’ exhausting we are. They aren’t going to pull away, they aren’t going to snap. They may push just slightly to promote growth. They are going to gently hold us up. They are going to stay in place despite any flaws or broken pieces. So, thank you, God, for my roots. (Special shoutout to two roots specifically, A & SB, you two are salt & light. You two are true blessings to me. Precious to my soul.)
I said it above and will say it again: I have gone to a place at times with that friendship of thinking that person never cared about me, never loved me, and if they did they wouldn’t treat me the way they did. But that’s not true. The truth is that she loved me to the point she was capable of. What she gave and showed was all she had the capacity to reflect. And some people do not have the capacity to reflect more love than what they have given.
Years ago in an Al-Anon meeting, someone said something I wrote down, “We all love the best we can.” The person continued by saying that people love how they want to be loved and that everyone loves to the best of their capability. Here is the exact quote I wrote down that a wise lady said during that meeting, “People who have treated me cruelly were doing the best they knew how. To expect more would be asking for disappointment because they have a severely diminished capability.” This is where I realized expecting more is asking for disappointment. “Expectations are premeditated resentments”.
This hasn’t been easy to get out. I have cut out more than I had even shared. There are times when a person will not relent. The bitterness, the resentment, their need to seek revenge or inflict pain. I’m not going to say don’t let it get to you, because pain is pain, hurt is hurt. It is a hard thing to process and I have a situation like that in my life, too. I know it’s hard because I have to continually forgive and process grief. And writing this now, maybe I have focused too hard on trying to forgive someone through this when my forgiveness isn’t what they need. On the whiteboard in my office, I have a quote from Henry Cloud, “The word ‘forgive’ has an original meaning: to cancel a debt. It’s important to remember you can’t cancel the debt if they’re still racking up charges.”
I agree with this. The Bible aligns with this. Think about Jesus on the cross, what he did is enough to wipe all our sins clean - we are saved! Yet, we are quick to rejoice in this without remembering there are requirements and there is a surrender that must take place on our end. However, our decision to not surrender or to continue to live a life of sin does not change the fact of how he sees us: the people who aren’t saved are still precious in his sight. They are still worthy of salvation. So even if your circumstance in a friendship or a relationship that has ended is one where you are having to continually face painful scenarios or stand accused: keep saying yes to the journey inside of you, keep repairing and restoring the places inside of yourself, and what you can control. There may never be reconciliation with the other person, but it can be reconciled within you.
What we must remember is that people who inflict pain onto others have some deep pain themselves. It usually doesn’t even have anything to do with us. But if we don’t grieve our pain, we will be the ones doing the hurting. As it has been said many times, hurt people hurt people.
As you are reading this right now, I want you to know that I know you have a story. I know somewhere you have felt betrayed and been hurt. My heart breaks for you and I am so sorry for whatever you have gone through. If I could sit with you, I would listen to your story, I would probably cry with you, and I would look at you and say, “I understand and what you feel really, truly matters”. I want to acknowledge right now for you just how tragic it is when a relationship we thought would last forever ends—it's incredibly painful. However, part of life is learning to accept these endings and processing our pain deeply. We can validate our feelings by reflecting on how the other person communicated and empathized—or perhaps didn't. It's crucial to consider that there may be more to the situation than we initially understand.
Embracing the present moment allows me to appreciate the friendships that I have, regardless of their duration, and allows me to cherish the connection I share with someone in that moment. Even if a relationship is destined to end, the gift of love and connection it provides is invaluable. If another friend came into my life and someone told me the same thing was going to happen with them and there would be some messy ending to it, I would still want it, because through that experience there would be love. In the friendship I told you about there was much more to be gained than there was lost. I gained a deeper understanding of myself, grew a better interpretation of how to process and grieve loss, and I saw the power of scripture come to life. Real scenarios unfold exactly as written. And I have learned how to love my enemies, I am still learning.
Another quote I have written on the whiteboard in my office is, “Your ministry is found where you’ve been broken. Your testimony is found where you’ve been restored.” The situation I talked about here broke me on many levels, it broke many things in my life, it had a ripple effect, and changed the trajectory of my life. But the restoration has significantly changed my life and my heart, this may not have happened any other way. Some situations break your heart, but will fix your vision. Just like the saying, “The truth will set you free, but it will break you first.”
Going back to the start of this very long piece and talking about the condition of Jesus with our relationships. When I give to my church, through service or monetary, or when I simply take communion or pray in secret, I want it to mean something. I want it to be consecrated. I want it to be of value. Our good deeds will never have value if we don’t first learn to love others the way that Jesus loved us. Our good deeds will never have any value without grace at work in our lives. Our good deeds will never have any value if our hearts aren’t changed.
Several weeks ago I wrote about Judas and Peter, then just a few days ago I came across something that said, “Be able to discern your Judas from your Peter…Peter had a bad day, Judas had a bad heart. Peter you restore, Judas you release. Like Jesus, you can love them both, but only hold one close. Check your circle. Guard your heart. Pray for wisdom.” Wowzers. Let us learn to make this distinction and always extend restoration to Peter and lovingly release Judas from our inner circle. Be vigilant about your circle and reminded that closeness should be reserved for the deserving.
I encourage you to do a little bit of spring cleaning. Take a look back at past relational experiences, those with pain points, and seek out the beauty within them. By forgiving and humanizing the circumstances, you can reclaim the love that was once there, transforming the situation entirely. If you only remember the trauma your love gets stolen. Your soul gets darkened. Hold yourself to a higher standard of accountability by balancing pain and compassion.
Grieving well after a relationship has ended isn’t easy work, but it is a human experience. Our flesh wants to dehumanize it by making someone completely worthless or by making ourselves worthless. Remember that Jesus was betrayed by people he loved, he was abandoned by people he loved. It was not a statement of his worth or value. The betrayals and losses we face are not a statement of ours either. It is a statement that this is the end of our season with another person, at least for now.
One of the biggest mistakes we make in life is thinking we have time. Time to make things right with others and within ourselves. The only time we have is right here, right now, in the present. Live in the moment, love more, and love now. Sometimes to be able to do this, you do have to reflect on the past and train your brain to remember that in every season of your life, you have had people who love you and added to your life.
Conviction and love. Conviction and humility. Truth and grace. Justice and mercy. Forgiveness and accountability. Faith and works. And here, pain and compassion.
Don’t forget: make things right as far as they depend on you.
