I Took A Test

Today I took a test.  It wasn't a hard test, although I did have to do some math.

It was a test geared to the Christian gifting, but it's really a sort of who are you test.  Who are you and what or who were you created to be.

My answers never shock me.  They've stayed relatively the same for a decade or so now.  Some would say that means I'm not growing or changing.  I might argue it just means I mostly know who I am and I've for the most part given up trying to be something or someone I"m not.

But, that doesn't mean that it's always easy to be me.

The majority of my gifting falls in relationship areas.  Not a huge shock there to anyone, I'd guess.

The hard part though, is doing it "right."

Relationships are who I am and what I do to a large part.  Sort of like telling stories is a part of my make up.

Relationships though, are hard. They are work.  They are a small amount of guessing and a big amount of risk taking.

Relationships are about trust, but trust is by it's nature risky.

Sometimes the hardest parts of the relationships we're in are with ourselves.  We get caught up in our minds of what we think we know about the other person, about what they believe about us. We have imaginary conversations in our heads.  We let our hearts hurt about things that aren't really even real.  We use our own pain to deny reality.  We use our fears to stop us dead in our tracks and then the slights grow.

The hard parts of relationships for me are keeping the lines from encouraging and supporting and crosses over to meddling and interfering.  It is hard to keep from getting in the middles of things.  It's hard for me to keep from doing and just letting each person grow and experience at their own pace, no matter how much I may want to do and fix.

What do you find hardest about relationships?