When IS Communication the Pathway to Understanding?

The primary cause for most fractured or broken relationships is failure of communication. This implies the significance of understanding and accepting the other person's need to share something important. Lack of understanding is often attributed to the failure to listen.

Failure to communicate is observed where every misdeed from the past is hurled at each other. In these attempts to communicate, issues become obscured by unresolved problems. Refusing to talk is to deny problems exist and eventually cause relationship failure.

If you want to be understood, communication is a necessary tool that makes it happen. Failure to communicate is the pathway to isolation, grief, and loneliness; however, God has given you a voice. Yet how you speak or if you speak is a choice God allows you to make. Sincere love and truthful communication are the means for restoring and healing a fractured or broken relationship.

    

_________ 

If I dispose of all that I possess, yes, even if I give my own body to be burned, but have no love, I achieve precisely nothing.

~1 Corinthians 13:3 Phillips – New Testament In Modern English

_________

Subscribe to the Attitudes Answers podcast on your favorite podcast platform to hear this and other 2-minute features 3 days every week.

Are Mutual Understanding and Forgiveness Absolute Needs?

How well do you communicate? Of all the issues that fracture and cause relationship failure, lack of healthy communication is the number one issue. Failure in communication is responsible for not understanding another person’s feelings, thoughts, and needs.

A relationship fractures when two people are not equally yoked in their ability to communicate. Each person experiences frustration, then becomes unapproachable emotionally and withdraws physically. The body language of silence is powerful in its effectiveness.

Failure to communicate causes relationship failure, yet it is possible to speak so problems are solved and intimacy restored. Isaiah 1:18 offers hope: “‘Come now, let us reason together,’ says the Lord. ‘Though your sins are red as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are as crimson, they shall be as wool.’” The challenge is for mutual understanding and forgiveness to provide restoration and healing.

_________ 

If I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

~1 Corinthians 13:2 Revised Standard Version

_________

Subscribe to the Attitudes Answers podcast on your favorite podcast platform to hear this and other 2-minute features 3 days every week. 

How Can I Keep from Rushing to Judge Others?

When a relationship fails, the questions everyone asks are, “Who was at fault? Who is to blame?” Friends and relatives choose sides because it’s difficult to remain neutral. By being impartial, it becomes possible to understand how each person participated in the relationship’s demise.

A relationship can fracture very early due to the baggage one or both people bring to the relationship. So what defines baggage? It refers to emotional wounds inflicted by past experiences that now make it difficult to trust and be vulnerable as God intended.

If that sounds hopeless, remember, with God all things are possible.Do not rush to judgment just to place blame, for “all have sinned and come short of God’s glory.” 

Ask yourself: “What does God want me to learn about how I function or communicate in relationships that contribute to failure to bond and attach?" Be still and listen to God as you wait. Pray for his help.             

_______ 

What if I could speak all the languages of humans and angels? If I did not love others, I would be nothing more than a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

~1 Corinthians 13:1 Contemporary English Version 

_________

Subscribe to the Attitudes Answers podcast on your favorite podcast platform to hear this and other 2-minute features 3 days every week.

What Sacrifices Are You Willing to Make for Peace?

Restoring a relationship that has been fractured can be difficult when hurt feelings and anger have evolved into resentment. A fractured relationship can evolve over what seems to one person a simple mistake, but to someone else it was designed to cause pain and suffering.

Deuteronomy 17:2 speaks of breaking your covenant with God by choosing to sin. While God is patient and will wait for you to turn back to him, there are consequences to be faced. Grief and sadness stem from fractured and broken relationships.

Admitting and confessing fault includes acknowledging attitudes and behavior patterns that must change if restoration is be renewed. God’s word reminds us that a broken and contrite heart is a sacrifice God will not reject. So sincerely recognizing and owning up to failure, then confessing and asking to be forgiven are sacrifices God and most other human beings find acceptable.           

________ 

He, [God,] heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.

~Psalm 147:3 New International Version

________

Subscribe to the Attitudes Answers podcast on your favorite podcast platform to hear this and other 2-minute features 3 days every week. 

Does a Fractured Relationship Exist in Your Life?

Fractured or broken relationships cannot be completely avoided because differences in personality and temperament spark rivalries and conflicts. Diverging political and religious beliefs cause tempers to flare and argument to blaze out of control.

Friendships and families can be torn apart over issues that have no lasting value. Yet in a moment of intense anger and hurt feelings, nothing seems more important than saying what you think and feel, even if it means leaving a relationship in shambles and permanently fractured.

Repairing fractured relationships is possible, provided each person is receptive to realizing important sacrifices have to be made, including being open to admitting personal faults. 

Differences need not rupture family ties or a friendship if respect and trust are valued above all else. Remember, God gave up Jesus as a sacrifice so a fractured relationship between himself and you could be repaired.                            

_________ 

Don’t do anything from selfish ambition or from a cheap desire to boast, but be humble toward one another, always considering others better than yourself. And look out for another’s interests, not just for your own.

~Philippians 2:3-4 Good News Bible

_________

Subscribe to the Attitudes Answers podcast on your favorite podcast platform to hear this and other 2-minute features 3 days every week. 

What Weakens Emotional Ties Within Families?

It’s impossible to engage in relationships and escape experiencing conflict. In the worst case, conflict and strife fracture the ties that bind people together. The Bible in Genesis tells the story of Cain, who permitted strife and jealousy to escalate to the point where he murdered his brother, Abel.

God never intended for strife to become so out of bounds that it overshadows the bonds of loyalty. Escalation of arguments are an ill-faded attempt to close the emotional distance that is so threatening. What breaks the bond that binds a relationship together is loss of trust.

Essential to mending or repairing a relationship is the mutual desire to understand what is possible in terms of realistic expectations. Taking responsibility for being the cause or perpetuating conflict is essential to restoration. 

Search your heart and be open to the truth God longs to instill in you. It is possible for confession to bring forgiveness and peace.  

________ 

Don’t turn away from God’s Spirit…Put everything to the test. Accept what is good and don’t have anything to do with evil.

~1 Thessalonians 5:19-22 Contemporary English Version

________

Subscribe to the Attitudes Answers podcast on your favorite podcast platform to hear this and other 2-minute features 3 days every week.

What Attibutes Motivate Healing for Families?

Facing a crisis with a child is an issue parents hope will never occur, yet children endure accidents and health problems that are unavoidable. Some experience emotional problems because of strife in the home that indicates a fractured relationship between the parents or a child.

A crisis may stem from current issues or be connected to the past but kept secret and now expressed in behavioral problems. Physical or sexual abuse, either currently taking place or from the past, may create undeniable grief for a child or the entire family.

A crisis can be motivation for healing the wounds from the past by initiating efforts to repair broken relationships. How can this be possible when so much damage has been inflicted? It’s amazing the extent loyalty and attachment play in the healing process. Loyalty and attachment are attributes God built into human nature and can be the main components for repairing relationships. Press on toward what is possible. 

_________ 

I pray that God, who gives peace, will make you completely holy. And may your spirit, soul, and body be kept healthy and faultless until our Lord Jesus Christ returns.

~1Thessalonians 5:23 Contemporary English Version

_________

Subscribe to the Attitudes Answers podcast on your favorite podcast platform to hear this and other 2-minute features 3 days every week.

Can a Breach of Trust, Respect, and Loyalty Be Healed?

A parent-to-child relationship can be severely fractured by improper behavior displayed from the parent and absorbed by the child. What comes to mind is sexual misconduct directed toward a child. In fact, this shameful act is more prevalent than reported.

That breach of trust, respect, and loyalty creates an emotional crisis experienced by the child when the safe attachment between the parent and child has been betrayed. Being unable to report what has happened, a child becomes emotionally isolated by this powerful secret.

The isolation a child feels is compounded when the other parent refuses to believe or blames the child for the parent’s behavior. Can this damage be repaired? God’s word reminds us that where sincere remorse and repentance are expressed, healing is possible. Time must be allowed for grief to follow its stages. Jesus said, “Blessed are those who grieve, for they will be comforted." 

The Great Physician can heal you.        

_________ 

And may God, the source of patience and encouragement, enable you to have the same point of view among yourselves by following the example of Christ Jesus.

~Romans 15:5 Good News Bible

_________

Subscribe to the Attitudes Answers podcast on your favorite podcast platform to hear this and other 2-minute features 3 days every week. 

How Can Fractured Relationships Be Repaired?

Children from every socioeconomic level experience fractured or broken relationships. These could range from conflict with a friend to losing a parent by divorce, separation, or death. Divorced parents remarry and move away so that visitation becomes sporadic or stops completely.

Repairing fractured or broken relationships is not easy. 

Mending and healing are dependent on the extent of the suffering experienced and the length of time these wounds have festered. What may be interpreted as minor to a parent can be major for a child.

A prerequisite to repairing a broken or wounded relationship is restoring commitment and loyalty. These are manifestations of trustworthiness. Listen to Proverbs 3:3: “Never let go of loyalty and faithfulness. Tie them around your neck and write them on your heart.” Ask God to help you be willing to forgive those who hurt you, for that is essential to God’s forgiving you.                     

_________

Whoever pursues righteousness and love finds life, prosperity, and honor.

~Proverbs 21:21 New International Version

_________

Subscribe to the Attitudes Answers podcast on your favorite podcast platform to hear this and other 2-minute features 3 days every week.

scribe to the Attitudes Answers podcast on your favorite podcast platform to hear this and other 2-minute features 3 days every week. 

Why Is Patience a Necessity for Parenting?

There are specific reasons why parents fail to bond with a child. Preoccupation with a career, a troubled marriage, or lack of interest identify several bonding failures. Constructing inroads for reconnecting positively with a child may require specific sacrifices.

Parents who are separated from a child by abandonment or divorce can begin to gradually reconnect with their child. Accepting that barriers will arise is to be expected. Small steps and minimal expectations are required to prevent triggering sabotage.

Feeling anxious is normal but it can promote being apprehensive. So patience is necessary, and what keeps patience active is remembering the objective is to create a new relationship at a pace that’s deliberately slow. 

Patience and self-control are gifts from God, so be receptive and thankful for what he provides. His provisions are always adequate.                    

_________ 

If you love me, you will obey my commandments. I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, who will stay with you forever. He is the Spirit, who reveals the truth about God.

~John 14:15-17 Good News Bible

_________

Subscribe to the Attitudes Answers podcast on your favorite podcast platform to hear this and other 2-minute features 3 days every week

How Does Proper Bonding Promote Trust?

How well do you know your children? I’ve heard parents explain how uneasy they felt taking care of an infant or toddler. As children advance in age and master a preferred language, the parent’s comfort zone extends considerably.

In a rushed society, experiencing the blessing of realistically getting to know your child thoroughly in each developmental stage is limited. God designed these stages to be windows of opportunity for understanding and bonding with your child. Knowing your child includes being aware of how they think and how they feel.

Bonding provides children with confidence their parents are trustworthy and dependable. It’s comparable to feeling bonded with God where you trust him to provide for all your needs because he loves you without hesitation. 

By giving yourself permission to love God with all your heart, soul, and strength, trust will grow for you give him first place in everything. Bonding thrives when God is present.

________ 

[Jesus] walked away, perhaps a stone’s throw, and knelt down and prayed… “Father, if you are willing, please take away this cup [of suffering] from me. But I want your will, not mine.” Then an angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him.

~Luke 22:41-43 The Living Bible

________

Subscribe to the Attitudes Answers podcast on your favorite podcast platform to hear this and other 2-minute features 3 days every week

Are You Faithful in Communicating with God?

This is the second day of the New Year, and 363 days are in front of you to thrive and achieve all that God has in store for you. Yet you are destined to face some uncertainties. You can confront uncertainty by placing your future into God’s care.

It's quite natural to experience anxiety, given the state of world affairs, our economy, and groups of people who love to create confusion and chaos. Yet, God summons you to look expectantly to him and receive the calmness and security he willingly provides.

God’s grace and mercy give you the tenacity to cope with whatever you  encounter, and that assurance originates from communicating with God in prayer. Communicating with God includes listening to his response by being still in body, mind, and spirit. 

Jesus did this by finding a calm, quite place to unite with God his Father. You have that same privilege. Do it now. Happy New Year!       

_________ 

This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.

~1 John 5:14 New International Version

_________

Subscribe to the Attitudes Answers podcast on your favorite podcast platform to hear this and other 2-minute features 3 days every week.