Fuel The Fire

So many times throughout the school year I deal with students who are dealing with broken relationships or fighting with their best friends. I see the tremendous pain that it causes in their lives and the sadness that they have to deal with. They feel betrayed by their friend or classmate and have a hard time understanding what happened to the relationship. One common theme I hear from them is the words "me" or "I" when they talk about the friendship. In other words, the discussion many times goes back to the point that they feel they weren't treated right or they weren't treated fairly. This could very well be true but I also ask them if they were treating the other person right or fair.

It is very easy for us to look at a relationship and think that the other person wasn't helping to make it work. Many times I hear the students say that their boyfriend, girlfriend or BFF wasn't as nice as when they first start dating or hanging out. I guess sometimes it's easy to become a little self-centered and look at what's wrong with the other person. It's a little more difficult to look in the mirror and ask what might I be doing wrong or how might I not be contributing. I usually get strange looks from the students when I ask this. I have often tried to come up with some illustrations to show this point.

Well this weekend, I had one of those moments that will make a great illustration. Today (Sunday, October 9th) was my wife's birthday. We were very fortunate to have our oldest son, his wife and our only grandchild come visit us this weekend to celebrate. Last night we were sitting around the fire and I was thinking. When I lit the fire, I had all kinds of twigs, pine needles, kindling, etc in the fire pit. As soon as the match hit it, it began a roaring fire. We were all sitting there enjoying it but I realized that I needed to put some logs on it or the fire would go out and everyone would be disappointed (and cold). I knew I had to keep stoking the fire. Throughout the night, I kept adding log after log, which kept the fire roaring so that everyone could enjoy it (even my granddaughter fell asleep by the warmth of the fire in grandma's arms).

Well that reminded me that our relationships are like that fire. It's easy to start out and have a roaring fire. We all remember that first date or that first kiss. Sparks were flying. However, our relationships need "logs" added to them constantly if we want them to keep going. We need to do nice things for our friends or our boyfriend/girlfriend. We need to think of them more than ourselves. We need to do and say things that make them feel special. These are like adding logs to the fire. Like I said, today was my wife's birthday, so after the kids headed home I was able to take Jeana up to the Defiance area and enjoy a beautiful fall day. I know how much she enjoys the fall weather and walks in the woods. This was another way of adding a log on the fire. I hope you think about your relationships and how you can add a "log" everyday to make that relationship roar and last a long time.