I’ve been trying to come to grips with what to do about the conflict with my sister.

There are two sides warring: 1) confront her with what’s she’s been doing and 2) don’t because it might burn a bridge in the future.

As might have been obvious from my weekend update post, I’m pretty sick of the nonsense and ready to let her go. I had for a long time been hoping to avoid a final break, but at this point, to be bluntly honest, I kinda don’t care anymore.

However, there is another very important part of me that knows that I too have been guilty of much sin, and have been forgiven. So I don’t have the right to be unforgiving towards anyone else.

And as a follow up to that, unless I’m fooling myself, I don’t really harbor unforgiveness towards her, I’m just tired of the crap and ready to move on. I certainly wouldn’t try to hurt her, and I don’t want anything bad to happen to her, I just can’t interact because she’s decided I’m her enemy.

I prayed, but didn’t feel like I got an answer directly in prayer. Sometimes I do, but not this time.

However, I also sought counsel from others- EVERY one of which pretty much told me NOT to irrevocably cut off contact, even if I chose not to respond to barbs she is sending my way.

I listened to a recommended podcast dealing with problematic family relationships- which was very good, by the way.

I processed through my thoughts by writing through how I would respond, what would be legitimate responses and what was just driven by anger.

After drive-thru prayer last night, I went to dinner with some of the others and laid out the basic situation. The same counsel came up- I can choose not to throw the ball back, without telling the person I’ll never play ball with them again.

This resonates with me for a few reasons. First, I know what I’m guilty of and am happy for the Lord’s forgiveness, and second, I always think- what would happen if the person actually changed? I would want to be the kind of person they would think of and say- you didn’t write me off in my darkest moments. If I tell her to piss off, I don’t want to talk to you, etc…. all I’ve done is burn a bridge.

So, I’ve decided I’ll just ignore what she sends. I’ve blocked her on my phone and set up an autorespond on my email that just says: this recipient is not responding to this sender.

I don’t expect her to change, and the only evidence I see is her becoming more accusatory and bitter through time, but hey, the Lord has fixed all kinds of losers- especially me, so he can do it in her too.

Part of me is bummed since I really was looking forward to getting some of this off my chest with her, but I already know it won’t have any positive effect. Part of me also knows that and was looking forward at least a little bit to sticking it to her…. but ultimately, I want to listen to what the Lord says.

While I know I can’t always trust “having peace about something”, I did, in fact, constantly second guess whether I was doing the right thing when writing out potential responses, and I’m perfectly settled in what I’m doing right now. So I’m going to go with that and say for now, I’m just choosing to eliminate her emotional barf without cutting her off.