Photo Credit: Lindsay Coleman
How do you fully handle this situation with grace and honor to both parties involved? It's such an awkward place to stand in one's friendship. You don't want to take a side, yet you sympathize with both parties in the feud. Do you call an intervention? Or just wait until things really blow up?
I have such a heart for sincere communication, a forgiving heart, and the art of listening rather than talking in an argument. But in my particular case (As the friend in the "Middle"), it doesn't look like either party is ready to talk it out yet.
So I get to tip-toe around subjects that involve the other friend while talking to the opposing friend. It's a bit exhausting and nerve racking.
But then I think, why am I taking this burden as my own? But then I think, this feud is somehow a reflection on my own capacity to choose loving and mature friends. I guess I feel like I failed in a way. The people that I chose to love in friendship, are choosing not to love one another.
But of course, I cannot take responsibility for someone else's actions and motives, but it still affects my heart.
I just hope that in the end, what was construed and meant for evil would be turned around for great good. And hopefully I'll be retiring my awkward-person-in-the-middle-friendship seat--sooner rather than later.
Wisdom's Knocking:
Most of the time, we are far more similar than we are different.