Weekend Kindness
Reaching Others Through Kindness

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Who makes a better friend: the person who is worried about protecting themselves from being hurt or the person who is willing to take that risk in order to allow another person to get close? The answer is obviously “the person who is willing to get hurt.”

A close friend is someone who knows you as you are and loves you anyway; therefore, it is impossible to build a deep and meaningful relationship if you never let your would-be friend get past the defensive walls you have erected to shield you from pain. (I am speaking from my own experience.) This applies to all relationships but is particularly pertinent to marriage.

To build a strong marriage, you must allow your spouse access to the “real” you. When you make yourself vulnerable enough for someone to see behind the facade you so often wear for others’ benefit, you also allow that person access to tender areas that are prone to be hurt. You didn’t get married because you wanted to live with a stranger. Most dreams of marriage center around a close, loving relationship where you are allowed to be yourself within the safe confines of your relationship with your spouse. Sadly, being human, your spouse is guaranteed to hurt you at some point in time and more than once. (Just a thought: you are also guaranteed to hurt your spouse.)

When that happens, it is easy to think (or act), “This hurts too much, and it’s not worth the risk to make myself vulnerable to this person. I’ll forgive, but I’m not letting myself be hurt like that again!” The walls come up, communication declines, and the marriage suffers. If you never tear down the walls, the loving closeness of marriage can quickly disintegrate into the polite distance of two strangers sharing a house.

Have you erected walls in your relationships? How about in your marriage? I know I have, and I have committed myself to tearing down those walls. I realize that I will almost certainly suffer pain because of that vulnerability, but I am willing to pay that price to have the relationships I want to have. I hope you are, too, for life without close friends, life without a close marriage, is guaranteed to be lonely.

P.S. If you are not sure how to go about bringing down the walls you have erected, I suggest you begin by reading the following excellent posts here at Weekend Kindness:

• A Crash Course in Bible Communication - Part 1
• The Time Is Now

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