SIBLING LOVE

I can't imagine not talking to my siblings. I can't imagine being that filled with anger or resentment that I couldn't just pick up the phone and say "hi."

Sure-we all get miffed or emotionally maimed or even made to feel like misfits every once in awhile...but that just means you're in a relationship-often with someone who really cares. And-sometimes when the relationship is with our own flesh and blood, it seems easier to get mad and stay mad, because that's how the little school girl or boy brat inside of us likes to react.

When we make the choice-and clearly it is our choice-to let too much time pass between our conversations...we are absolutely punishing ourselves and others from receiving the anointed gift that God gave us so freely and so generously. It's as simple as that. God gave it and we took it away.

A woman shared this week that while talking with her sister, she got mad, hung up the phone and didn't speak with her for three months. As much as she hated to admit it, she not only missed her sister...she realized their foolish fight was pathetically juvenile. Much to her discomfort, she also knew that she needed a whole lot of soul searching about why she was really mad.

Usually our ego is the antagonist, enthusiastically engaging us in an emotional mind game that is fueled by fear-unsubstantiated fear-and backed up by insecurity. Our own woundedness gets in the way of what's really being said-so we hear something that's not being said and that's when everything spins out of control.

The woman who shared her failings so freely, said she picked up the phone, ended the stand off setting into motion the most miraculous healing. I was deeply touched at her humility and her honest desire to take personal responsibility for her actions-because in the end-resolving conflict is the path to true inner peace.

My siblings and I have had our messy moments...but thank God we are still going strong and securely united. We lost our youngest sister several years back to a brain aneurysm...which popped without warning, sending her into a coma and far away to life beyond our reach. We miss her terribly, but I for one am immensely grateful that she and I were closely connected and intimately in tune-before she crossed over.

Sometimes-we don't get a second chance to say we're sorry or how much we Love them or that we simply enjoy being their friend. So now's the time-when there's still time...because time could be running out.