8/17/17 There isn’t much worse than girl drama, but there
is one thing, mom drama. A year ago, Jayden and I each lost a friendship and I am honestly not sure what all happened. A friendship of many years, then one day they just gave us the silent treatment. I have made attempts to resolve things and apologized even though I am not sure what for. I have made attempts to meet them and
work it all out. It was so sad to me and I wanted to fix things. I am a person that does not like conflict, I like to make things better and never want to have bad feelings between anyone. I prayed many many times over the broken relationships between her and our kids. It effected Jacob so much too as he lost his best friend for no reason at all. Over and over she has stolen our joy many times. We have not
spoken face to face in a year. On the phone and through text, she can get
pretty angry and mean. In January the mom sent me a long message about forgiveness
and wanted me to know she had forgiven us. I think it was an effort to make herself feel better, but in reality she had not forgiven. Later when Jayden was at Mayo, the other daughter
was also at Mayo and the girls chatted on snapchat. Jayden was feeling pretty
good about things getting better. She had a big weekend, got a colt from a sale
and came back to find out the friend blocked her on social media. The only thing I could see is maybe
she didn’t like seeing Jayden getting a new horse, feelings of jealousy. It was
strange. Then one day out of the blue In April, The mom called telling me her
daughter was so sad and depressed and really missed the girls relationship. She
wanted her daughter to get together with Jayden and just talk. I thought it was a good idea and agreed, but once again we never heard from them. Recently Jayden had
a couple friends over, Morgan and Brianna. Once again I believe jealousy took over because one of the girls is friends with both. This is where the drama
started to unfold and it was snowballing into a big mess. I got some really long
snarky texts from the mom. I had a million things I wanted to say, wanted to
reply to her mean comments, but I decided silence would be best. I knew my words weren't going to change anything and she needed to cool down before I could talk to her. She likes to throw scripture verses at people in a way that is full of blame and accusation. I felt bad for Jayden's freind who was torn between two friends and crying. Her entire family got in the middle of it and things were getting out of control. I have tried to let this all go , but it just keeps resurfacing. Now that other families are involved, I decided this has got to stop. I don't know how or what it will take, but this has gone on too long and there has been too much hurt.
8/15/17 I recently heard a church sermon about gentle restoration and it hit me. I saw my good friend Carolyn and talked with her
a little after church on Sunday. I also made a phone call to a church mentor
whom always has great Godly advice and is full of wisdom. I felt very much that
the Lord was telling me I needed to speak with the family in conflict. On
Tuesday evening Mark and I sat down with the parents, Steve and Michelle. Mark was not happy
about going with me. He told me very clearly he despises situations like this
and thinks it is childish. He told me the only reason he was going was to support
me. He has been through some very rough drama with Allie when she was very
little. He was not looking forward to it at all. It took a lot for them to agree on meeting in the middle. They insisted on us going to their house, but I didnt think that was right. When we sat down, I made it clear I was not coming in anger or to argue, I was
coming in with the intention of gentle restoration. I could see rage and anger in Michelle's eyes as
she glared across the table at me. It was a rough conversation and a lot was
said as we tried to understand where each other. There was a
lot of jumping to conclusions and a lot of assumptions on their part. We were
very clear and both tried to reason. There was a lot of silence and a lot of
hurt for the past year between families. Mark was surprisingly calm and had
things to say that were very helpful to all of us. In the end, I gave Michelle
a hug. I know we will never have the friendship we did, but hopefully we can
have peace between families. That was my goal. When we left, Mark felt it went
well, he was glad he went, he had a different perspective. He even had a side
of compassion for them and what they must be harboring in their lives to have so
many broken relationships and lost friends. I think she was surprised and
expected us to put up a big fight. We tried to be understanding, apologetic,
and forgiving. I truly want things to be better between our families. I think if the moms didn't get so involved in their daughters relationships, that would help a lot. Where it will go from here, I do not know. I just want to move on and quit looking in the past. Life is too short to hold on to bitterness.
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