I love gardening. I love helping bring something to life, nurturing it, and watching it flourish.
I am not particularly great at gardening, though. Any improvement I’ve had has come through the school of hard knocks: a plant I put in the wrong soil, a plant placed in the incorrect amount of sunlight, or not giving a plant the right amount of water (my default is always that more must be better—it isn’t).
Relationships are like plants, aren’t they? They are fragile. They are challenging.
Relationships require the right people connecting during the right season of life under the right circumstances.
We work hard to create friendships, and even once we form strong friendships, they aren’t easy to maintain. It’s easy to lose friendships that don’t need to be lost.
I recently had a friend who stopped responding to me. My emails and texts went without reply. I felt hurt and frustrated. I racked my brain for something I might have done to offend him. I genuinely couldn’t think of anything. Why would he ghost me?
Have you ever had something similar happen to you? Why did they stop calling? Why don’t they want to hang out any longer?
It’s easy to feel hurt when we are rejected. How can we move past that pain? I would suggest that our strongest ally is empathy. If we consider the times we have spurned others, we might understand why they ghosted us. I protect myself from creating damaging stories best when I step into their shoes.
Have you ever been on the other side of rejection? Have you ever pushed someone else away? What were your reasons?
There is a story that is so painful that I hesitate to write it. In our first year of seminary, two friends asked us to be their child’s godparents. It was their final year of seminary. We were honored to be asked and quickly said yes. When that year concluded, they moved a thousand miles away, and we did not keep in touch. The little boy’s first birthday passed, and we forgot to reach out to him. Embarrassed, I told myself I would make it up. But time continued to pass, and not only was every birthday forgotten, but our communication soon came to a complete standstill.
Why did I neglect my responsibility as a godfather? It was not because of anything our friends had done. They weren’t rude; they didn’t say anything hurtful. We simply got busy. But it wasn’t just that we got busy; it was that we got busy, and I was ashamed. I was embarrassed at my failure. That shame, compounded by busyness led to my failure as a friend.
As I reflected on the friend who ghosted me this past year, my mind created many stories. I don’t fully know his story, and I probably never will. But I know I was privy to some sensitive things he shared. I know that uncomfortable vulnerability coupled with the busyness of life likely compounded his shame and led to the ghosting.
So, why did he ghost me? I don’t know, but my hunch is that it was a combination of busyness and shame.
There are a few takeaways from this consideration. First, let’s not take friendships for granted. Friendships are challenging to form and delicate to maintain. Second, let’s be empathetic with one another. It’s easy to create stories when we are hurt that misattribute the motives of those who have disappointed us. Let’s be those who push past the human impulse to cast others’ failures in the most negative light. Let’s assume the best and consider what untold challenges they might be walking through. Pausing and praying for that friend who has ghosted you can shift your heart toward them. I know when I pray for my friend who ghosted me, my heart moves past hurt and to empathy for them.
Finally, let’s not underestimate the corrosive impact of shame in our relationships. Shame can freeze us. There are few shifts more dangerous in our hearts than the shift from feelings of guilt about what we have done or left undone feelings of shame about who we believe we are. Resolve not only your guilt but your shame before Christ. He takes away both at the cross: forgiving us for what we have done, and transforming who we are. Speak forgiveness quickly and don’t miss opportunities to remind those close to you of who they are in Christ. Let’s do all we can to walk through coming to terms with our shame and be gentle with others as they deal with their shame.
Only when we see others as Christ sees them and experience Christ's cleansing work for our shame can we experience emotionally and spiritually healthy relationships that God intends for us.
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Photo by Andrew Neel on Unsplash