{"id":1139,"date":"2015-03-13T06:39:24","date_gmt":"2015-03-13T11:39:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/?p=1139"},"modified":"2015-03-15T19:58:20","modified_gmt":"2015-03-16T00:58:20","slug":"the-gift-of-a-good-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/2015\/03\/13\/the-gift-of-a-good-fight\/","title":{"rendered":"The Gift of a Good Fight"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you know me, I don’t love conflict. But I have grown to appreciate the necessity of fighting–how it can lead to deeper intimacy in friendships, in family relationships, in marriage. My newest piece is up at Today’s Christian Woman,<\/a> about this very thing.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

I was out of town when I received a voice message from my friend Gwen. I\u2019d been at a conference all day and couldn\u2019t be reached, so I sat in the hallway and listened to her words. She was hurt, she mentioned, by something I\u2019d said earlier in the week, and she wanted to know my intentions behind it. Had she misunderstood me?<\/p>\n

I sighed.<\/p>\n

I dislike conflict\u2014especially conflict with people I love. Three or four years ago, words like this from a friend could have sent me into a tailspin. I would have felt anxious and unsure about our relationship, questioning her love for me and our friendship\u2019s footing.<\/p>\n

But this time, I was sighing because she was right. I was sighing because I knew that I needed to apologize. I was sighing because, honestly, I was tired of being a sinner. I was tired of hurting the people I love the most.<\/p>\n

I connected with Gwen, explained my intentions, and repented for where I had sinned. She was more than gracious. She was loving, and she forgave me. And I wasn\u2019t worried about where we stood; I knew our friendship was solid.<\/p>\n

For someone who used to avoid any form of argument as much as possible, I felt oddly buoyed by the realization that I was, in fact, getting better at this conflict thing.<\/p>\n

The Grace of a Fighting Friend<\/h4>\n

Gwen is nothing if not honest. When we became friends, it quickly became apparent to me that she never shied away from conflict.<\/p>\n

When our friendship grew closer, I learned she also wasn\u2019t afraid of a fight. In fact, she welcomed it. She was never bullheaded or self-righteous, but if there was something between us that didn\u2019t feel healthy to her, she brought it up. I initially had a difficult time reconciling Gwen\u2019s welcoming attitude toward conflict with friendship. The two seemed to be at odds.<\/p>\n

But Gwen\u2019s friendship has been a grace in my life. I\u2019ve learned that conflict, handled well, leads to intimacy. And the inverse is also true; intimacy can\u2019t exist honestly without conflict.<\/p>\n

What Holds Us Back from Conflict<\/h4>\n

I wish conflict didn\u2019t exist. My preference is that relationships could roll along without any fights, arguments, or disagreements. But if we get up every morning and actually interact with other humans, we know that conflict\u2014or at least the possibility for conflict\u2014is everywhere.<\/p>\n

Read the rest of the article here<\/a>, at Today’s Christian Woman!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you know me, I don’t love conflict. But I have grown to appreciate the necessity of fighting–how it can lead to deeper intimacy in friendships, in family relationships, in marriage. My newest piece is up at Today’s Christian Woman, about this very thing. I was out of town when I received a voice message […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[20,4,5],"tags":[228,61,34,397,400,222,398,399,401,402,52,403],"class_list":["post-1139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-friendship","category-god","category-life","tag-christian","tag-christianity","tag-faith","tag-fighting","tag-fighting-fair","tag-friendship-2","tag-gift-of-a-good-fight","tag-good-fighting","tag-how-to-fight-fair","tag-how-to-fight-well","tag-jesus","tag-marriage-fighting","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1139"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1139\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1151,"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1139\/revisions\/1151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}