conflict, awkward moments, grace & forgiveness

I’m really proud of my husband tonight and I’m so glad for how the Spirit works to make things so much better. We had a conflict with some of our Haitian friends and we invited them over tonight to talk it out. It’s hard to explain it without going into long stories and we don’t want to make things public that shouldn’t be. But, I just want to say that I think God, the Spirit, was at work.
We started with reading scripture (Titus 2), praying and then talked things out. Everyone was able to be polite, understanding, apologetic and even threw in a few jokes here and there. I thought Richard did a great job leading the discussion. There were uncomfortable, awkward moments, but there was grace, forgiveness and love, too.
There was a 13 year old there because he was involved in what’s been going on. At the end Richard asked him what he learned and he said “Don’t take what’s not yours.” I thought that was the sort of thing Richard was hoping to get for an answer. Richard said that was a good thing to learn, but he also said, “do you see what happened here? We were able to resolve a conflict without yelling, cursing, or even worse.” That doesn’t always happen. Because we have received grace from God, we can forgive each other. Although there are consequences for our sin, grace makes all the difference.

"For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, 13 while we wait for the blessed hope—the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, 14 who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.” Titus 2:11-14

"So at the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria enjoyed peace, being built up; and going on in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it continued to increase." Acts 9:31

May the comfort of the Holy Spirit increase.