Access Denied

I tried to use Microsoft Access today and I couldn't get it to do what I wanted it to do. Access Denied.

As I thought about it, I realized that relationships are often like that. So often, we approach a person, do the human version of point and click, and the results aren't what we expect. It's like a program that doesn't open or has bad data or freezes up or sends out the blue screen of death. Access Denied.

With a computer, very often rebooting clears the buffer and sets things aright: Turn off the machine, turn it on again and voila!, problem solved and back to work. With people, it isn't as easy. When we are locked out of another's inner self, there isn't any switch that will wipe the slate clean and allow us to begin again.

People keep, as the Bible calls it, a "record of wrongs" in a way that a Mac or PC do not. The words of past conversations aren't deleted; they are a shadow on the page of the present and the hurt they might have caused leaves a mark, not an empty white space.

My field is communication, so one would think that I could hardly argue with people sharing their issues in the name of honesty and authenticity. I believe in the power of openness to heal, reassure or change a relationship. What I do have a problem with, however, is honesty without charity, with emotional dumping rather than a search for mutual understanding.

Healing one's own hurt only occurs when the search for it treads lightly on the feelings of the other involved. People get defensive when told that they have made a mistake or handled something badly. Awakening this self protective instinct is to shut down any desire on their part to reach out to the one who has just mauled the heart. Hurt begets hurt, not healing.

So, it is in our ultimate self interest to care about the feelings of someone who has hurt us deeply, but only God can give us enough grace to even ask for the desire to be so inclined. To do the loving thing requires persistence in prayer that God would change our perspective to see the whole picture and not just our version of it. Otherwise, the equivalent of a pop up screen appears on the relationship: Access Denied.