Handled Not Heard...

So first, let me say thank you for all of those who have requested to follow along if I go private...yes, I know, I said 'if...'  As I've read your comments though, I realized that if I had been private, some of you who are adopting older wouldn't have been able to read about our experiences with older child adoption and really, that's the reason I started this blog in the first place...

So, I'm going to keep praying about it for a while.  I've saved all of your requests in a file, so if I do decide to go private, I'll send you an invite!!  But I admit, some of where I was on Saturday was because of some things that happened last week, and maybe a blog wouldn't be a good place to explore those feelings anyway...

So, now for the reason for my post...  Last week was a really tough week.  The details don't matter, but there was a HUGE amount of upset.  Maybe I didn't handle things so well, but I just kept getting more and more frustrated because no one was listening to me...(except for 2 of my closest friends and my husband who offered me some incredibly wise counsel through it all.)

By Friday, things were really rough and I decided to talk to someone that I trusted, who had some authority in the situation, but it was a terrible conversation, I think I ended up feeling worse than I did to begin with...

Now granted, maybe I did a TERRIBLE job of expressing what my concern was...maybe it was just the wrong time...maybe there was too much emotion for me to appropriately express what was really upsetting me, but I just couldn't seem to get anyone to hear what was at the root of my concern.

As I pondered all weekend what went wrong... I realized that I felt like I had been handled not heard and that is a really ROTTEN feeling.  I just wanted someone to listen to me and get...I mean really get...my concern.  I wasn't looking to anyone to fix it, the details at that point were all worked out, but I just needed to be heard.

But it really made me stop and think, how often do I, or have I, responded in the same way?  When someone comes to me with conflict, I want to fix their upset... I want to handle it...  But maybe people just want to be heard...to have their concerns validated and some serious consideration given to their point.

I think I've gotten better at that over the years teaching Community Bible Study, but I still have a lot to learn.  I hate conflict and usually try to end it as quickly as possible.  I think in the future though, I will try to listen more carefully to the concern behind the complaint.  Maybe all people really need is just to be heard...  My kids included!