Conflict Resolution

I definitely do not get upset with people, nor have people upset with me often. As a result, when one of my best friends got upset because of a prank I went too far with, I was a bit at a loss of what to do. My sister Shelley and some of her friends, Sarah, Rebekah, and Lauren had had Rebekah first knock on William's door to ask about the bonfire they were supposed to have. Of course William had never seen Rebekah and so was somewhat mystified, however, canceled the bonfire and so Rebekah left. Then she came back 10 minutes later and asked to use the bathroom, used it and then left. About 30 minutes later, as William was watching TV he looked over and freaked out when he saw her staring in at him from the corner of the window! He then proceeded to call me and I of course knew what was going on but played along, then called my sister and friends and laughed about it. I then went over to visit/protect (wink) William and Ben. They were both a little freaked out, I guess even more than I recognized. Anyway, the girls had made me promise to keep my mouth shut until Wednesday because they were going to surprise William at Bible Study. As a result, while at his place I had to deflect some questions, which is not easy to do with William being one of my best friends and all. So anyway, the girls surprised him, but William got upset mainly because I had not told him about what was going on when I should have seen they were upset and because I had walked on ice/deceive Him about what I knew the girls were doing when he asked. Of course I immediately wanted to fix everything that night after Bible study, but William (though unstated) had wisely decided to let the emotions die down and talk it out Thursday night, which we ended up doing. I ended up having to apologize for not telling William earlier since he was seriously perturbed and for not being honest with him. However, we were able to work things out and now I think our friendship is stronger for it.

I learned so much from this experience, which is the main reason I am sharing it. First that I must continue to be as open as possible with people and never intentionally mislead them. I need to continue to be willing to ask for forgiveness. When I am emotional I can say stuff I should not. I often will need to take some time to step back to remove my emotions from the situation and to give the other person the time to do the same. We need to both be ready to discuss things before we jump in to trying to resolve the conflict because we may make it worse by, in a fit of emotion, saying something we do not mean. I need to step back whether I am in a misunderstanding where someone gets their feelings hurt or if I am in a relationship where we have hurt each other. I also need to state that I need some time to process things. During that time of stepping back, both people need to work out clearly what they are upset about for them to be able to have a productive conversation.

I also found out that I have very little idea what it means to be committed to a relationship. My respect for couples who really "know how to fight" has grown by leaps and bounds. I am thankful that even though it was a tough day to go through, that I have a good and wise friend in William who knew enough to be able to step back for a day, and was committed enough to our relationship to forgive and move on as good friends. It is truly amazing to have great friends! Now off to hide and go seek in cars! (Someday I am going to learn to put pictures on this thing-like maybe when my senior design project to build an AWESOME robot is done!).

Unfaithfulness...

Well, so much for incremental faithfulness. Although I am an engineer, which has improved my attention to small details simply as a mode of survival, I am still a big picture thinker. I would rather invent the concept and not go through the dirty work. Yet the realization that most inventions are brought about by just that type of work, though a cold reality, has begun to direct how I foresee the rest of my life playing out, assuming that I do actually end up in engineering.

In light of the above, it is amazing sometimes that people see fit to give one responsibilities; honestly delegation is an amazing talent, which I can say I may be getting better at, but still need some practice. Todd has seen fit to have me lead the Bible Study in his abscence. It seems there are two possible responses to responsibility, fear or confidence, which could have all sorts of other "side effects". Unfortunately, even after leading many times, my response is less like fear and more like confidence. This is unfortunate because it is a foolish confidence in myself; whereas I would prefer, and believe that it has been prescribed, that my confident action stem from a trust in the truth that God wants to and is using me. I am praying that He would be the one there and working through me this next Wednesday. I suppose you could generalize this process, put it in the vocabulary spiritualization machine and end up with a general rule for making decisions but I will make no such attempt here. Such things are better reserved for semester summaries, such as might be published on my website. In the meantime; since I sense that you might be desperate for at least some explanation I give you two cryptic groups of letters: TRUST GOD.

Here are some other events over the last week; maybe I will make it rather a goal to update weekly instead of daily; I mean, who is going to read all of this stuff otherwise (in addition to how detrimental daily updates would be to my sleep schedule!) My parents and little sister Laura came for the weekend which was great; apparently the cleanliness of my duplex impressed my mom, they got to cook for the Nav group, and took us out for some great food. Deep conversation was limited but not nonexistent; I am so thankful for having such a loving family. Summer plans are still up in the air which is a source of a little anxiety, so I will be researching them heavily this week. After all, what is a better cure for anxiety than knowledge right?!?

So, I was just thinking that if I am going to actually do this, then I better stay consistent. As always, habits and character qualities seem to be built by incremental faithfulness. So you want some interesting news from today? Physics of Solids first test went well, although it was very comprehensive. Like you want to know that stuff. Ok, seriously, today was pretty boring, although at least at club Frisbee practice I did much better than my worse day of Frisbee ever last Thursday (see forums at www.auburn.edu/frisbee). This weekend I had an awesome talk with my Dad and Mom for two hours about life and relationships (I guess you need some time to catch up after not talking to them in any detail in two weeks!) They are coming this weekend, so I am very excited. That's all for now!

Entering into the blogging world

Well, here is my first post. It may be somewhat boring, but it will get the job done. Kinda like me, though hopefully it will not be that way always...