We have been given a message of reconciliation

In trying to understand ourselves it is important to ask questions and to be excruciatingly honest in our answers. Otherwise we are just fooling ourselves.

Why do I do … what I do?

What experiences have shaped me?

And what fears haunt/drive me?

When my parents divorced and my father left I felt:

A sense of loss – the divorce meant we lost not only our home, but our whole way of life on the farm.
Angry at my father for his alcoholism and for leaving
Rejected by my father and insecure.

Those experiences helped shape my adult feelings of:

Fear – fear of rejection and abandonment
Undeserving of what I want or get
Fear of being judged
Insecure and defensive

And then I remember that, “We have been given a ministry of reconciliation.”

And that God is not like my father, He is a father who runs to us when we are still a long ways off.

There is someone in your life that doesn’t know this, but needs to.

Maybe it’s you.

So look for common ground.

Forgive over … and over … and over again.

Treat others as we want to be treated in everything.

We have been given a message of reconciliation.

We are… reconcilers, peacemakers.