Are you as upset with Joanie as Jane was?
Could the few short months away from home have totally ruined a friendship that had taken a lifetime to develop? It seems unlikely, and it was. Joanie returned to the church to greet her friend, and give an explanation for her coldness. You see, the problem was actually….a cold! Joanie was caught without a tissue and her nose was beginning to run. She was embarrassed to greet her friend that way so she ran out to her car to grab a tissue.
Silly story, right? How often, though, are we hurt by imagined sleights? We get a rough response, or no response at all, to a question or comment and we devise all kinds of “reasons” for this happening to us. We may pout, or seek some type of revenge. We may determine to teach the other guy by giving them the “cold shoulder”. If we are Christians, is that really how we ought to behave.
As we grow in the faith, working our way through the process we call “sanctification”, we will mature. We will have an easier ( not necessarily easy ) time of following Paul’s instruction to forbear with one another. In other words, put up with each other’s faults without demanding our own satisfaction. We are all going through the process and you know, somebody is lovingly putting up with you!
If a matter is serious, Jesus instructed us in Matthew 18 how we should handle offenses. Maybe this little story will be a help to you. It reminds me of God’s great grace to me and how foolish I am not to follow His lead toward my brothers and sisters in Christ.