The Village Kids are going to their room now and looking at this picture. They are going to have a chance to imagine what these two girls are thinking. We could do that too if we wanted to. I’m going to ask Jamie over lunch what they came up with.
Do you remember being their age? One day you are best friends with someone, and then next day, you hate their guts. One day you are “in the clique” and the next day you are out. One day you are in love with that boy or that girl, and the next day you wonder what you ever saw in that girl or boy, when you were little kids or maybe next week. Children, and teen-agers are fickle in relationship. They will turn their back on you in no time. Girls especially; am I right?
But here is the sad part: many of us never outgrow this kind of behavior. Now we expect this kind of behavior from our 12 or 13 year olds. We expect it, it happens. But too often, it happens with grown-ups, seriously!?!?
The childish games we played in grade school and junior high, get repeated through adulthood. We turn our backs on our friends. We lie. We cheat. We backstab. We get possessive or jealous. And so we sabotage our relationships despite ourselves.
Now in our defense, it’s not all our fault. It takes two to have a friendship. And other people are not always trustworthy. Sometimes they hurt us. They turn on us. They’re selfish. You fill in the blank. It’s a wonder anyone has a long-lasting partnership or friendship in our world. For the next several weeks at The Village, we are going to focus on relationships here at The Village, and what it takes to have “Healthy Relationships.”
Our theme for the year has been “We have enough.” I believe we have enough emotional maturity to have healthy relationships. I believe we can have good enough boundaries, and self love, to have healthy relationships. I believe we have enough strength, from God, to learn who to have healthy relationships. I believe we have the ability, with God’s help, to have these healthy relationships.
The Bible has some great stories of people learning the hard lessons of how to have good relationships. Sometimes we need to look at good and bad relationships to learn. Over the next few weeks we’re going to hit some of the best stories. Today we look at Ruth.
Here is how the story goes (Ruth Chapter 1 from the Message Translation for those following along via the web): Naomi’s family was from Bethlehem but they went to live in Moab because there was a famine in their homeland. Naomi’s two sons married two Moabite women: Orpah and Ruth. Naomi’s husband died and the sons died and so these three women were left with no men to provide for them. And in these times, you were totally dependent on the men.
Ruth heard that there was food again in her homeland of Judah so she decided to travel back there.
8-9 After a short while on the road, Naomi told her two daughters-in-law, "Go back. Go home and live with your mothers. And may God treat you as graciously as you treated your deceased husbands and me. May God give each of you a new home and a new husband!" She kissed them and they cried openly.
10 They said, "No, we're going on with you to your people."
11-13 But Naomi was firm: "Go back, my dear daughters. Why would you come with me? Do you suppose I still have sons in my womb who can become your future husbands? Go back, dear daughters—on your way, please! I'm too old to get a husband. Why, even if I said, 'There's still hope!' and this very night got a man and had sons, can you imagine being satisfied to wait until they were grown? Would you wait that long to get married again? No, dear daughters; this is a bitter pill for me to swallow—more bitter for me than for you. God has dealt me a hard blow."
14 Again they cried openly. Orpah kissed her mother-in-law good-bye; but Ruth embraced her and held on.
15 Naomi said, "Look, your sister-in-law is going back home to live with her own people and gods; go with her."
16-17 But Ruth said, "Don't force me to leave you; don't make me go home. Where you go, I go; and where you live, I'll live. Your people are my people, your God is my god; where you die, I'll die, and that's where I'll be buried, so help me God—not even death itself is going to come between us!"
18-19 When Naomi saw that Ruth had her heart set on going with her, she gave in. And so the two of them traveled on together to Bethlehem.
Ruth understood commitment in a relationship. She had committed to this new family. She was not going to abandon her elderly mother-in-law Naomi, who had lost her husband and her sons. Family was everything to these people. These were the people of Israel and Ruth had taken on their God as her own. We don’t know why. We don’t know what she was leaving behind. But she was ready to stay with her mother-in-law Naomi. They must have had a strong bond, as friends. Ruth understood commitment in a relationship, in relationship not everything is good and light, in for followers of God. She knew the road ahead would be hard, but she made her choice – to stand with Naomi.
Because here is the thing: none of us get any promises of a life without some ups and downs. Ruth understood that. She had already lost her husband to death. So she made a choice, to move forward in life, with Naomi.
We all get a choice. Who will we move through this life with? Who will be the friends we will hang in there with?
I learned an important lesson about all this early on in my adult life. In my first church I had a women’s small group, where we talked about spirituality. It was a great group, because we had women of all life stages, young and old, married, divorced, widowed, some with young children, some who had raised their children long ago and some, like me, who had never had children. One night, we talked about marriage and commitment and those primary, life-long commitments.
Some women, who had divorced and remarried, shared that they had learned that when you leave one committed relationship for another, that you really just leave one set of problems for another. Everyone has baggage. They confessed that if they had it to do over again, they might have just worked harder in the first marriage. You just trade one set of baggage for another set. It gave me something to think about as a 24 year old single woman who really wanted to be married, and who spent the next 10 years thinking I would never find a life partner, the wisdom of those women was not lost on me.
I have some other friends, two men, who were in a relationship about ten years ago. One morning they woke up and realized they were not sure they wanted to stay together. They were at a crossroad. They had to decide if they were going to stay together and it was not looking good. They had been together for about 10 years at the time. They were past that honeymoon stage when you are crazy in love. They were to the point where you realize that those habits of the person that annoyed you for the first year are never going to change. That was on September 10, 2001.
They were living in New Jersey, and one of them was supposed to be working in New York City on September 11, 2001. The events of that day, changed our country and our world forever. Planes hit buildings, lives were lost, and my friends, like many others, took another look at what is most important. Suddenly the little things that were causing conflict in their relationship were not so important. In fact I asked my friend this week, if he could remember what they were fighting about. He said, “not really.” It was the same little stuff they had been struggling with for the first 10 years of their relationship and the past 10. They realized they would rather face life in this crazy world together, rather than alone, and they chose to build a life together. Now, ten years later they adopted two children. Today they have a strong family. They love God, and they understand that commitment is what is most important. No relationship is perfect. What’s important is finding someone worth working with, to build a life together.
So, how about you? Are you happy with your ability to hang in there and do the hard work of being in a friendship or a partnership, some significant relationship with an imperfect person? Because, as we know, no one is perfect. Now, let me be clear. I am not suggesting here that anyone remain in an abusive relationship. We all need clear boundaries to take care of ourselves. And there are limits to what we can put up with, because we cannot control the behavior of the other person. Did you hear me? We can not control the behavior of another person. But if you find someone who wants to work at a friendship or a partnership, are you willing to hang in there, do the hard work and find a healthy relationship. That is the question that this story from Ruth and Naomi has to offer us today.
I want to invite you to think, now, of one relationship that you would like to make better. Perhaps it is one that you are about to give up on. Or maybe it is one that is most important to you, and you simply want to re-commit your energy to it today. I am going to give you some time, in the quiet to ponder how you will commit to working on that relationship. You might write something down, or send a text, an email or a Facebook message to that person and let them you know care about them. Now, you may not succeed in this. It takes two. But you may have someone see the Jesus in you and reconnect.
Do you have a place that will help you foster your health in your relationships? If not, find one. There are many places where you can find that help, many trail heads to the paths that lead to healthy friendships and partnerships. If you haven’t found one yet and you’re near the corner of Monroe & Central some Sunday, drop by at 11 AM (or coming next year in Maumee).
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