When Howie and I were first married, he told me that one of the things to which he intended to commit was to always be the first to apologize. It wasn’t out of some excessively competitive nature that has to be first at everything – even humility. Though he does exhibit an impressively large capacity to be competitive. Still, I knew he wanted to communicate to me his desire to be intentional, proactive about making things right in our relationship when the inevitable disagreements emerged. He was making the statement that our marriage would, in part, be defined by reconciliation.
We don’t agree on everything. But we are in harmony about most things. And when we do have seemingly opposing stances on even weighty matters, we continue in our discussion with an eye to notice where we do actually agree. Because, whatever the issue and how opposing our viewpoint might seem on the surface, the crux of our views are grounded in a sure and solid foundation. And even then, this foundation shifts and evolves because our viewpoints shift and evolve – because we continue to talk it out and ask questions and fine-tune what each means to say until we recognize a point of reconciliation.
According to the New Oxford American Dictionary, reconciliation is defined:
- the restoration of friendly relations
- the act of making one view or belief compatible with another
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