The still small voice

Today I had a disagreement with a dear friend. A friend I hold in the highest of regards. And honestly, I don't think that friend even knew we had a disagreement and I am pretty sure he didn't know that he had kinda hurt my feelings.

So, I did what any "girl" would do......I pouted a bit and decided that I was just going to be mad, hurt and sulk a bit more. I replayed the conversation over and over in my head trying to figure out why my friend would say something like he said. I think I even went on to draw conclusions about other areas that had nothing to do with our conversation and then I got even madder. =(

Luckily I sat down long enough this evening to take a minute and reflect on the conversation that I had had with my friend. And I heard the whisper of a voice telling me to call that friend and set it right.

You see I value this friendship. A lot. And for many different reasons. And, luckily I was able to hear the voice tell me that correcting the disagreement was a lot more important than my stinkin pride.

So, even though I don't like confrontation, I called my friend and told him my feelings on the conversation. And, I was right, he didn't even know there was a disagreement. We actually talked it through and I figured out that one little piece of communication had gotten left out of our conversation and that this little link of information made the conversation take a whole new direction.

Boy, am I ever glad I listened to that voice. You see, Satan would have loved to have taken my "half truth" and used it against this friendship. He would have loved to have wreaked havoc all over the place with this. I shudder to think of the damage a crack like that could have caused over the course of time. I can see how out of control it could have all gotten, just because I (yes I) had missed ONE sentence in a conversation.

I am so thankful that God told me to lay down my pride, call my friend, become vulnerable to him by telling him he had hurt my feelings and then lovingly confront him with what I thought (emphasis on THOUGHT) he had done wrong. We worked through it and fixed it. Instead of a crack in our friendship, we have a stronger respect for each other. I think that is just amazing!

I am grateful for my friend. I am grateful for his heart. I am grateful that we can even agree to disagree on some things. But, I am most thankful that he was able to forgive my stupidity and allow me the gift of continued friendship.

And when I think about how easy it was to fix this misunderstanding, I start to wonder why we don't do this more often? But, yet that is another blog...it's late and I don't think I better try to tackle another issue tonight! =)