In 1975, an angry man rushed through the Rijks Museum in Amsterdam until he reached Rembrandt’s famous painting “Night watch”. He took out a knife and cut the painting up. In 1990, a man sprayed acid onto the painting with a concealed pump bottle. Security guards intervened and sprayed water onto the canvas. Luckily, the acid had only penetrated the varnish layer of the painting and the painting was fully restored.
Rembrandt painstakingly created a masterpiece that in a moment of impetuousness was almost destroyed. E.R. Bulwer-Lytton said, “It is difficult to say who do you the most mischief: enemies with the worst intentions or friends with the best.” So what do you do with a relationship that is so valuable and precious but now lays cut, broken or fractured through harsh words or foolish actions? What do you do with the pain, the heart wound and regrets? I think the answer lies in the way in which Rembrandt’s painting was treated. The curators would never decide to simply throw this iconic work away because it was damaged. WHY? Because it is priceless. Rather the painstaking process had to begin to restore what was deeply damaged.
I hear people say silly inaccurate things about relationships one being, “you shouldn’t have to work so hard for to make a relationship work” WRONG! In fact I would say you only get out of a relationship what you invest into it. Especially when one or the other or both has been wounded ‘work’ is exactly what its going to take to fix it. Here are a few thoughts on how to try to redeem something from a relationship that’s on the brink of nothingness…
-Assess the value: Some relationships are for a season, some should have never been and some are for a lifetime. Relationships, even great ones, go through seasons of conflict. But whatever the case you must asses the relationship you are in before you seek to reengage and repair it.
-Handle with care: Like a damaged Rembrandt, a damaged relationship must be repaired with care. Its can’t be fixed haphazardly since it was most likely haphazardness and impetuousness that brought the relationship into it’s broken state.
-Own your part: They say it takes two to tango. I don’t tango but I do know that it doesn’t always take two to make a relationship go wrong. If you did the cutting, OWN IT, and repent of it… from the heart.
-Forgive freely: Healing can’t come were forgiveness isn’t granted. It doesn’t mean opening yourself to get cut again but rather forgiveness is a balm that heals the cut that’s already there. Forgiveness is more a gift to the wounded than to the one who did the wounding.
-Forge forward with new wisdom: To learn from others mistakes is wisdom. To learn from your own mistakes is smart. To refusing to learn from your own mistakes is just plain stupid. Make every conflict count and let it make you and your relationships better.
“Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art, like the universe itself (for God did not need to create). It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.” -C.S. Lewis
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