The Administration of Reconciliation

By Tawna Wilkinson

    

The other day, I had a hard and messy conversation with an individual regarding their dissatisfaction with the church, and what they felt was wrong with it. The truth is I was hurt and very frustrated, as this wasn’t the first time I’d been approached with the same thing.

However, after I allowed myself the shabby process of sorting out my raw emotions with God and my husband, the Lord reminded of II Corinthians 5:17-21:

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

I realized if things were the way He intended in the beginning, there would be no need for our administrating reconciliation. For when things are reconciled, they are back to the way they were created to be.

When Christ was here He waded through enormous dysfunction with people’s perceptions of what He needed to do to make things right – in the synagogues; with the Pharisees and crowds; with the twelve men He hand-picked to journey with Him; even with his mother and siblings. And though Scripture doesn’t give much detail about His childhood, I can’t help but think there was a lot of muddling He had to endure just being a kid and teenager.

We want things to be neat and tidy; to be okay. And more times than not, I think that means, the way I want them to be. We hate the groaning our spirits, bodies and souls experience when we perceive things are not the way they’re supposed to be. And the last thing we want to do is stick around and engage in the hard work of restoration.

 Several years ago, a wise young man said to me, “Relationships are messy, and no one wants to get involved in them.” He was right. It’s obvious. When things don’t go the way we want, our first reaction is to bail…. don’t stick around and muddle through the mess and confusing in-betweens. It hurts. It’s hard. We have no promise that we’re going to see resolution. And what’s worse, we have no control over the outcome, let alone another’s choice.

I completely understand. I’ve bailed more times than I care to admit. I’ve thrown my hands up in frustration umpteen times, “knowing” for certain things are never going to change. But if that is true, then this passage of Scripture isn’t.

So today, I am actually thankful for the individual approaching me. For although the issue was not resolved, I now see I was presented with another opportunity to use my “ambassador muscles.” God, and this person, trusted me with part of the messy process of bringing a piece of reconciliation to this beautiful, broken and messy world. And I am glad I chose to engage in it.

The Dreaded TeeShirt Drawer

By Tiffany Bleger

So, my dear husband likes tee shirts. A lot. Plain tee shirts, colored tee shirts, tee shirts with business logos, tee shirts with funny pictures, tee shirts with sports teams. I counted them one time. And just shook my head in amazement. 

The tee shirts go in two drawers in the dear husband's dresser. When we first got married, we quickly realized that we had two very distinct tee shirt folding styles. And those two folding styles were, more often than not, completely incompatible with each other. So, I would wash the clothes and fold them. When I would put them away, I would put them in the drawer "my way". Any shirts that were in the drawer folded "his way" would get refolded to "my way" and stacked with the others. 

This method had the potential to work perfectly... if only the husband didn't wear the tee shirts. 

You see, the husband actually likes to wear the tee shirts. So he would rifle through the drawer, looking for "that one", messing up my perfectly aligned stacks. If he refolded any of them, they were folded "his way". Have you realized yet that "his way" equaled wrong in my mind? Other times, the shirts were just shoved back in haphazardly, which was only slightly worse than folding them "his way". So every time I did the laundry, I ended up refolding and reorganizing his tee shirt drawers again. 

This process became so annoying and tedious that I began to dread the laundry. I began to harbor resentment against my husband. I began to believe lies like -

"You know, if he appreciated you, he wouldn't do this."

"He doesn't see how hard you work around here. You're invisible."

"He doesn't respect you. You don't matter." 

It got so bad, I stopped dealing with the drawers all together. I would fold his tee shirts and leave them stacked on top of the dresser. If he put them in the drawer, fine. If he didn't, fine. I wasn't going to deal with it. And I wasn't going to acknowledge the obvious lack of communication that was occurring either. 

Fast forward a few years. I'm browsing Pinterest, wasting time, when I stumbled across an article about folding tee shirts. I clicked on the link, not expecting anything. But what I found started a new process of communication in our marriage. The method taught by the website was different than my method, and different than his. It even had you stack the tee shirts in the drawer differently. The more I looked at it, the more I thought it just might work, if I could convince him to go along with the plan. 

But first I had to talk to the dear husband about it. 

Neither of us like confrontation. We were both raised in families that did not deal with confrontation well, and so we both took the "don't rock the boat" mentality. It was easier to harbor bitterness and resentment than actually face and deal with the hurts we caused each other. 

Guess what I found out when I finally talked to my husband? When I told him how frustrating it was to be continually folding and refolding laundry? How unappreciated and invisible it made me feel? 

I found out my husband wasn't a mind reader. And neither was I. 

He had no clue why the tee shirts had started being left on the top of the drawer. He had no idea  how frustrated and alone I felt. 

We talked about that dreaded tee shirt drawer. We talked about this crazy idea I had to do something completely different. We talked about talking to each other. About really being honest. About sharing our needs, our desires, and our hurts without making assumptions about the other person. 

And we folded the tee shirts. 

Today, when I open the drawer, there's usually a few haphazard shirts. But they don't bother me like they used to. I refold them and stack them, knowing that it excites my husband to be able to see all the tee shirts at once. And I'm at peace knowing that I can take my wounds and fears to my husband in safety. 

You see, it was never about the tee shirts at all. It was all about the communication.