A Choice

Back when I was in junior high I had a best friend named Jennie. For quite a while we were inseparable-- we shared a locker at school, we walked to and from the bus stop together, we hung out at each other's houses and talked on the phone for endless amounts of time. (Apparently my phone phobia did not extend to talking to Jennie.) We were very different girls but that just seemed to give us more to talk about.

And then, in an instant, it all ended. Jennie got upset at me over something-- to this day I still don't know what it was. Something small, probably. And she quit speaking to me. I can hold grudges just as well as anyone else so I immediately responded by refusing to acknowledge her existence. It was tricky when we were still sharing a locker. I used to hover just around the corner, peeking to see if she had left yet before going to get my stuff. We continued this way until near the end of junior high, and probably would have kept pretending the other didn't exist forever, except that one of us (now I can't remember who) broke down and spoke to the other at the bus stop. Nothing big, but it broke the ice a little bit.

But we were never good friends again. The year and a half long grudge killed it. Sometimes I wonder if junior high would have been less horrific for me if Jennie and I had stayed friends.

Last Sunday I had one of those surreal moments where I mentally lived this experience all over again with someone else. A friend of mine at church said something to B that hurt her feelings and left her sniffling miserably for the next 30 minutes. My first response was to get offended. It's so easy to get offended. As I sat through the meeting feeling hurt and even angry, it was if I could see the future extending in front of me. Since I was upset I would avoid her. She would feel my coolness toward her and distance herself from me. Pretty soon we wouldn't be speaking to each other. I would go out of my way to avoid her at church, and our friendship would likely be over and she would never know the reason why.

This train of thought continued and I could see how the dominoes could continue to fall. Holding a grudge at someone like that would leave me without the Spirit in my life. It would be so easy to quit going to church (especially since it would help me avoid my former friend). I would probably feel too guilty and resentful to pray. It could end up with me abandoning the gospel altogether, leaving me to flounder in negative feelings and darkness.

All this went through my mind with such clarity that it was like I could actually see it happening. It was enough to me to examine my thoughts and realize that I was making a huge deal out of nothing. I think the Lord helped me to see just exactly what I would be choosing if I didn't forgive my friend. (Especially since she would never intentionally hurt my daughter's feelings.) Did I really want my life to take that path? No.

Hopefully I will remember this the next time I'm tempted to hold a grudge against somebody.