She cried hysterically into the phone, and I forced myself to not SIGH out loud. Here we go again. I despise going in circles. I despise wasting time and I especially hate being on the receiving end of someone's emotional breakdown. It almost feels like the phone is radiating heat, and if I could drop it I would. But I would just get a return call, back in the same place with the same person.
This particular conversation started innocently enough. Me--expressing how I felt about a specific situation. The other person-- going into full blown memory lane of past hurts that occurred 10 years prior, ignoring the fact that she had done me wrong. I mean really, all I wanted was an apology. That's it. A recognition that I had been wronged. But instead that person pulled the victim card. I've been down this road before. IN fact I've been down this road with this particular person too many times to count and to say the emotional outbursts get old is an understatement. At this point, I straight up tend to shut down at the first sign of tears.
And as the water starts to flow, and the voice becomes elevated and all high-pitched....well, that is my signal that the conversation is going NoWhere fast.
Here we go. I'm going to have to do this....again. I'm going to have to feed into the emotions and coddle someone that is grown enough to know better. I'm going to have to show up to love someone, instead of proving my "rightness."
And in the moment I FAIL miserably. I continue on my track of ending the conversation as quickly as possible with the one prerogative of being the victor. I am Rocky Balboa, fists in the air, rocking back and forth on my toes AS IF I just crushed my worst enemy.
Because being "right" in an argument is my main goal. Every. Single. Time. I am quite aware of my tunnel vision to prove the other person wrong. It happens with more than just one person. Somewhere down the line I learned that being right means you win the entire conversation. It means you are the better person overall. It means quite often I leave someone I love feeling like crap. That I have done so many times, I've lost count. And you know what happens when I have this tunnel vision? I love people poorly. I get so set on proving I'm right, that I lose sight of the most important thing....I lose sight of just how valuable the other person is to me. Time and time again I fail to choose love.
We all have those people in our lives (that aren't going anywhere,) those that will always remain in our life. And yet, those seem to be the one's that we show the least amount of grace to. It is easier for me to extend love and mercy to strangers, and like pulling teeth to show the same for those closest to me. All in the name of "being right."
Maybe it's my age, or possibly it is that God has done so much work in me that I NOW RECOGNIZE the prompting of the Holy Spirit, but we weren't created to be "right." We were created to love and be loved. And so often that includes putting done our own agenda and stopping to LISTEN to another's. I am a work in progress, that is for sure. And I'm pretty sure that an emotional phone call is in my future, but this time (possibly) I can look at it as an act of adoration for the person on the other line. A sign and demonstration that they are WAY more important to me than my need to be right. Love always wins.
Peace and Blessings,
Carla
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