We All Lost

We all lost.

Words were said.

Actions were taken.

The reactions of hurt, pain, or simply the pride of being the one who wasn’t wrong.

But we all were wrong.

We lost.

It was a big price to pay.

From the outset, we didn’t realize there was no way to win.

Yes, we may have felt like we won.
We may have felt like we came out on top.
But the truth is—we had all jumped over a cliff and didn’t realize it.

There would be a long climb back to the way things were.
An impossibility we believed was achievable.

In that, we also were wrong.

We all lost.

Fools and didn’t know it.

“It is to one’s honor to avoid strife, but every fool is quick to quarrel.” — Proverbs 20:3

Foolish from the moment frustration set in and division began.

Instead of praying.
Instead of changing the emotion.
Instead of giving the benefit of the doubt.
Instead of realizing the other person is human too.
Instead of remembering the good… the vows… and what love looks like…

Pain replaced love as the commodity to give and receive.

Hurt became a bank account rather than forgiveness.

In fact, hurt not only deposited daily into the account, but opened brand-new ones because the expectation became that they were the bad one.

The heartless one.
The prideful one.

Their mere presence shut us down and put us on the defensive—just waiting for the next moment to pounce… to prove our point.

A point that had evolved into something that no longer resembled the original pain.

We had allowed it to rewrite the relationship.
We had allowed it to rewrite someone’s character.
Someone’s integrity.

A rewrite that didn’t really match the person the story was about.

We wanted to believe it.
We wanted to believe the bad, so we did.

That kept them in the wrong and us in the right.

But the “right” was a farce.

And deep down, we knew it.

Still, we shoved the thought down because the power was coming from the twisted story we had allowed to take over our minds.

We felt like we were in control.
Like we were saving ourselves by holding onto the narrative.

We were really out of control.

We were wrong…

…continuing to lose at an uncontrollable rate.

But there was still hope.

Hope we didn’t see.

Hope that, if we grabbed onto it, would stop the fall and bring us—not to winning the argument—but to relational health.

To do that, though, hope would have to become our guide.

Hope would have to become the lens we looked at life through.

Hope anchored in the promise of a Savior who says everyone is broken—not just the other person in the relationship… but us too.

A Savior who says:

“I love you even though you have many imperfections.”

“I love you even though your faith is less than perfect.”

“I love you and view you as having high redeemable value.”

“I love you and will stay by your side through your imperfections while you are still on this side of eternity.”

A Savior who will not hold things against you the way you are holding things against this other person…

Even though He has every right to.