The Pain of Relationships

I don’t know why, but as life moves on day by day, I am more deeply struck not only by the joys of relationships but also by the pains of relationships. 

Why do relationships have to be so painful at times?  So suddenly, how can a moment of pure joy with a person be followed by a moment of heart breaking sorrow? 

I don’t have solutions that can be listed in some book called “7 Steps to Pain Free Relationships”.  I merely write about this for therapeutic purposes; hoping that writing about the pain in relationships will play a part in the healing that I look and hope for in the future.  I wait for the healing that God will certainly carry out in His perfect way and timing.  This post is more of my own random musings on this topic, and maybe food for thought to others.

Why are we always hurting the people who love us the most?  Whom we love the most?  That is quite the irony, isn’t it? 

Can it be that in the depths of love we also discover the depths of pain?  Is it that without one we also cannot appreciate the other?  As without the presence of evil we also don’t know the presence of good?

Why do we hurt those in our lives who deserve to be hurt by us the least? 

Why are we selfish against those who have shown us such selflessness?

Why do we show conditional love towards the very ones who unconditionally love us?  I don’t understand any of this whatsoever. 

Why do we take for granted the presence of the very ones whom we should least take for granted? 

How can we, with one careless stroke of the tongue, speak abounding love one minute and hateful, spiteful words the next? 

Why do we find ourselves attacking and fighting the very people who would have fought for us and on our behalf? 

Why is it so easy to point fingers of fault and place blame on another?  How do we, so carelessly and thoughtlessly, decide to attack and blame someone else for what has gone wrong, rather than accept responsibility for our own wrong doings?

Oh, we do behave in some backwards ways, don’t we?  Ways that do not make any sense whatsoever.

The Apostle Paul spoke of the warring of our natures in Romans 7:14-25:

For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin.  For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate.  But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that the Law is good.  So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.  For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not.  For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want.  But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.  I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good.  For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members.  Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?  Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!  So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin.

There is a great battle taking place between

our soul where the human flesh desires to have something for its own selfish benefits, no matter the cost to others

and

our spirit where the spirit of God speaks to us revealing the truth of what will bring true love, peace, grace, and righteousness in the best interest of all concerned

I know that God is working on teaching and showing me something through all of the depths and emotions of such situations and pains.  I stand on both sides of the problem; wounding others and being wounded myself.  I’m not sure I am quite getting this lesson God is teaching; but I think I do see something taking shape in my finite mind. 

What I do know right now is that, with each passing day, I hurt more deeply when the relationships in my life experience difficulty that is not quickly resolved.  I experience great sorrow when a trespass has occurred.  There is such a pain in my heart when the flow of peace, love, and grace has been severed from any of the relationships in my life.  Why I have become more sensitive to these things, God only knows.

As I first began to type these random musings, I wanted to write that I had no solutions; no answers to this problem of pain in relationships that we face every day.  However, as I was bringing this writing to a close, the God of heaven and earth reminded me that there is a solution.  The answer is HIM; more of Him and less of our own selfish, self-preserving selves.  How do we “do” this?  Is there a 7 step plan?  No. 

HE does it.  We ask Him to do it in us.  We ask and welcome Him to have HIS way with us, through us, and in our lives.  We stop protecting ourselves from His ways, and we stop holding ourselves back from His work in our lives.  We hand ourselves into His faithful hands, and He will take care of the rest. 

For His glory…