There's Beauty In The Ashes
I've written several articles about the extreme need and value of apologizing to people, so I don't want to rehash that altogether. But I want to use a recent experience with an "apology" at the center of the event since there is something within it that I want to draw out.
Let me tell you about a recent event (meaning, this happened minutes ago) and the back story (over the past several years):
I just hung up on a phone call with a friend from the past. We hadn't really been friends for years. We had a "falling out" a while ago. Since the falling out, and gradually, as the years rolled on, I realized a lot of the hard feelings were mainly due to my strong personality.
That strong personality of mine used to drive, dominate, and torpedo conversations and people. In relevance to this old friend and colleague from years ago, I had been overly focused on outcomes and KPIs. In this relationship from years ago, I wasn't focused – at all – on appreciating my colleague's diverse temperament, nor the relational aspects that were important to our work together.
As time passed and years piled up from our schism years back, I felt convicted to apologize. In full disclosure, I had apologized to this person a few years back, to be precise, but it wasn't with the full fervor that needed to be. I wasn't honoring the relationship even though I had apologized for some of my "strong personality" mishaps.
But today, in this conversation, I apologized – fervently. I honored him well.
Sidenote: My point is not to pat myself on the back for "owning" my junk.
The Big Note: Through today's conversation, where I truly apologized and honored my friend, reconciliation came out of it.
The Big Bottom-line: There is beauty in the ashes. Yes, a mountain of good can come from a mountain of muck.
For my friend and I, even though we had a fractured relationship for years, it didn't sideline the progress we were both making individually – on ourselves – over that same lengthy timeline. He was growing, and I was growing; although in separate places, in separate people groups, and in separate worlds. We, separately, had both grown tremendously over the years. And yet, it was the fruit of the individual growth that enabled us to circle up together – albeit after years of an ardent past – and bring our best person(s) to the conversation. This culminated in the conversation today, where we both learned that we had a relationship that needed to be restored. And the relationship was restored. That's a gift, without question.
But another amazing blessing that came out of the conversation is we both were able to connect all the dots of how we have both grown individually through the muck. We were both gifted with a 20/20 "rearview mirror" perspicuity that wouldn't have happened on our own. It was the two of us coming together and turning a sour relationship into something good. In the process, we saw such goodness in who we had become, as individuals, from the wrangle and bad blood that had happened years ago.
For example, I realized several things after going through the muck. These are just a handful:
I don't want to blow off my mistreatment of others with thoughts or words that would communicate to a person, "I'm just a driver and someone who gets things done. Deal with it."
I don't want to be overly transactional.
I want to cherish relationships.
I don't want to win an argument at the expense of a relationship.
I don't want to "write off" anyone, ever.
I want to be a liberating leader who is fighting for the highest possible good of those around me.
I can learn a heck of a lot from going through the junk, through the muck, through hard times.
There's beauty in the ashes. Yes, there is beauty in the trial and the challenges in the tribulations. I know this is cliché and a platitude that is voiced over and over again in the church world, in the ministry world, and even in the business world. But many times, it feels like we're saying that but not really believing it.
I believe it. I just lived it.
I'm so glad I have my friend back. I'm so glad he accepted my apology. I'm so glad I dove into the muck, learned from it, and came out on the other side to be a better person; not just for myself, but for the world.