Keeping the Peace... Regret #3

Are you a Peace-Keeper or a Peace-Maker?  Regret #3 is all about the way we settle the peace in our lives...

For a clearer picture, let me share Bronnie's 3rd regret on her list of the top 5 regrets people make on their deathbed...

I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.

 

Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others.  As a result, they settled for a mediocre existence and never became who they were truly capable of becoming.  Many developed illnesses relating to the bitterness and resentment they carried as a result.

 

We cannot control the reactions of others.  However, although people may initially react when you change the way you are by speaking honestly, in the end it raises the relationship to a whole new and healthier level.  Either that or it releases the unhealthy relationship from your life.  Either way, you win. 

 

This is a difficult one for me.  I abhor conflict... disagreements... strife... dissension... disciplining children... arguing... and discord.  I am a wimp.

 

I will walk miles to avoid conflict.

 

Expressing my feelings does not come naturally.  Well, that's weird to say, because really, that's exactly what I do on this blog.  Huh... so, on closer examination, what I really do not do naturally is involve myself in the conflict kind of expressing my feelings.  Yes, that's the kind I avoid...

 

Which really makes me a doormat.  I thought it was easier to suppress those feelings than to rock the boat.  I truly do not like to upset people. 

 

But sometimes, a thing needs to be said, in a nice way of course, that still may upset the hearer.

 

An example?  When mom was desparately trying to prepare for the inevitable course of her pancreatic cancer, I could barely stand to see the pain it was causing my dad, not to mention all who loved her.

 

But she knew, gut-deep, that she needed to prepare.  And despite the many, many days that we avoided the conversation, she didn't give up.  As we share in the website, it was her best, last gift to us.

 

What would have happened if she had suppressed her feelings to spare ours?  Taken the "easy" road and avoided the conflict?  We would have been lost and floundering and filled with regrets when the time came to honor her last wishes... In her gift to us, she exhibited a grace and dignity that raised our relationship to a whole new, deeper and more profound level.  I will ever, ever be grateful for her courage in this.

 

End of life issues are never, never easy to talk about.  And you cannot control the reaction of others, but in speaking honestly and from the heart, rest assured that peace will settle.

 

In Matthew 5, Jesus taught the multitudes from high upon a mountainside.  He gave us the passage of scripture that we call the Beautiful Beatitudes.  In verse 9, he shares... "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God." 

 

He didn't say Blessed are the peacekeepers...

 

So, I'm thinking that God did not call us to be peacekeepers, but to be peacemakers.  Too often I find myself trying to keep the peace at all costs.  Sometimes, I need to make the peace by confronting an issue, even as uncomfortable as it might make the hearer and me.  And though this may cause momentary conflict and distress, I truly believe that it ultimately brings peace.

It is not easy.  I do not like it.  I have not arrived.

But I am striving to turn my peacekeeping ways into the gentle and blessed art of peacemaking...

May Peace Settle in Blessed Abundance this night,  Love Always, Jane