My Friend Reconciled With His Dying Brother And This Is What I Learned
Lessons For The Things That Matter Most
Reconciliation is one of the hardest yet most valuable things we do as Christians.
After all, we are ministers of reconciliation.
I was with a close friend who was with his brother who recently died of cancer.
Here’s things you should know:
the brother is young
the brother is painfully estranged from their mom
the brother is painfully estranged from my friend
and now the brother is dying
He flew 30+ hours from out of the country to see his brother upon hearing that he was on the last legs of his life. He spent 3 weeks with his brother’s last 3 weeks of life to help do some absolutely miraculous things:
help broker reconciliation with their mom
broker reconciliation with him and his brother.
lead him to Jesus before he passed (ayyyyyyy!)
It was one of the hardest trips of his life. I got a chance to spend time with my friend and hear how he was able to do this.
This is what I learned:
Lesson 1: Reconciliation probably means the death of you.
Forgiveness is a one-way road.
Reconciliation is two.
One can forgive in their heart. But reconciliation takes two people. It takes openness on both parts.
It was the excruciating process for my friend who came as a servant. But his brother’s heart was hard. Very hard.
For anyone who tries to love someone with a hard heart, it’s excruciating. It’s exhausting.
Love unrequited is never a good feeling.
It is what love is. It is what Christ’s love is actually.
Lesson 2: You can only do what you can do, the rest is up to God
I have another friend who wrote a really long tear-filled letter to an estranged child which was met with ambivalence. There are countless stories of broken relationships where one party just won’t budge.
When we shoot for reconciliation, we can only do what we can do.
My friend’s brother was, without mincing words, a jackass.
But something about being on our death bed humbles all of us. It makes it rethink our immortality. Sometimes death is God’s mercy for us to see life from eternal eyes.
And by a sheer miracle, my friend’s brother opened up on his deathbed.
He eventually forgave and made up with his mom.
He forgave and made up with my friend.
And in the end, he made up with Jesus and knew that he needed him.
Do what you can do. Do everything you can do actually.
But the results are up to God.
Lesson 3: Attempting reconciliation is always worth it
The things that people regret most in life are not achievement or career-based.
The things people regret most are relationship-based.
They regret the relationships they didn’t work on.
They regret the things they didn’t say to make it work.
They regret the love they withheld.
It cost my friend thousands and thousands of dollars to fly over, pause his business, and leave his wife and kids, in order to make amends with his brother. Was it worth it?
I’m certain that none of it was regretted.
There are some things in life that are worth everything.
If you are dealing with broken reconciliation, let this be an encouragement: Brokering reconciliation is worth it.
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How about you? What’s stopping you from brokering reconciliation with someone in your life?
You were made for greatness,
Phil