I suppose I should post something that actually requires THOUGHT

I've been thinking a lot lately about relationships. It is after all that time of year. In my Sunday school class we have been discussing Love, Sex and Dating (traditional at our church in February) and I am realizing that so much could be summed up in the single word, RESPECT.

Respect, I thought I knew a long time ago what that word meant. I'm finding that I either didn't or else I am being brought to a new level of understanding. Either way, I am seeing things about myself that I don't like.

Take for example the ease with which I, like most people I know, casually discuss others. Gossip by any other name is STILL gossip. Recently I have begun to take seriously my friends requests of me that they NOT be the topic of conversation. By take seriously, I mean I am hearing that request and acting on it without running it through my mental list of exceptions. For far too long, "don't tell anyone" meant "don't tell anyone except Harold, David, My Mom, Mike, Rebekah, Laura or Stephanie." Rationalizing that "I tell ______ everything" and not caring that the party speaking to me might not know that and might not have shared at such a vulnerable level if they had. Respecting someone means respecting their confidences...Even without a confidentiality clause to force you to do so.

Respect also requires seeing people for themselves rather than in terms of what they are to you. True relationship means loving someone, even when they don't do what you would or what you would like for them to. Anything else isn't a relationship, its an alliance. Alliances are conditional. They last as long as they are mutually beneficial and then can be discarded when they are not. Relationships are deeper than that. They endure when things are not "even" and survive when things are not what you would like them to be. They are based on love, not on if then statements. There is no, "what have you done for me lately", in a true relationship. If I see someone only in terms of what they are to me, I am going to be resentful when others take their time and emotional energy. When I see someone as themselves with their own needs and responsibilities then I can more easily accept that their priorities have NOTHING to do with me. I can ASK for more of their time and tell them that I am missing them and it not be pouting and manipulation. If I feel as though I am entitled to that time and emotional energy that loneliness is likely to come out as resentment and in a way designed to manipulate what I want rather than communicating what I would like. And even if what I am seeing is given in response it is tainted from being forced.

I have at least one friend from whom I need to seek forgiveness. Whom I owe SO much for having stayed and endured when he was getting entitlement and manipulation from me. I owe him a debt of gratitude for not accepting that from me. For knowing that I was capable of better and loving me even while my behavior toward him was anything BUT loving. For believing that I was worth it and that despite what he was seeing for knowing that I truly DO love him. For waiting for me to grow the heck up and stop acting like a spoiled brat. Actually, I have two such friends. And I am amazingly blessed.

T