Today is Easter Sunday, which as a Christian I celebrate for the resurrection of Jesus, the foundational assertion and centerpiece of my faith- that God sent His Son into the world to die as a sacrifice for human sin, so that in His resurrection from the dead, Death would be dealt a mortal blow with sin, and that Jesus might give His resurrection to His followers. It was a good weekend to think about God and His goodness, and second chances. And third and fourth and fifth chances. And on and on. Lord knows, I need them.

I also got to think about the need for change in human hearts when I spent some time with a valued friend on Saturday, first wandering galleries on Canyon Road in Santa Fe, and then stopping for dinner there at a popular local restaurant. The friend I was with is someone I would say I love pretty deeply, and she is someone I’ve known as a friend since my college years, though we’ve been in different worlds during most of the years between the early and the late ones. Affection is a curious affectation, grabbing us at the oddest of times, and pulling our hearts into orbit around another for the broadest range of reasons. I, being as I am, tend to fall in pretty heavily with those I end up cherishing, as I have with her over the last few months. And yet she is also someone I have tremendous affection for because we are both pretty sensitive people and emotionally responsive, and an emotional mirror, she has been an easy friend.

Well, because I am me, I also get confused easily in relationships, and I bring my own stuff on into closer ones and tend to gunk them up.

I bring that tidbiy up because what began as my opportunity to spend a great afternoon with a loved friend went south pretty fast because, well, I got insecure- and then I got scared. And my insecurity and hurt, expressed in a brewing silence that then resulted in the offering of an ill-timed, awkward comment (because I wasn’t sure of my value to my friend), set off an avalanche of negative feelings in her heart that echoed from her past, when as a pleaser she tried to satisfy an intimate who was always disappointed in her. My awkward behavior and words that voiced a frustration actually sent her pulling back from me, and I was now sinking in emotional quicksand. Seeing pain cross her face and then feeling the weight of silence between us, I realized I had wandered too far into an emotional space with her that was off limits to me. I hadn’t meant too. But the damage was done.

After weathering the silence and finishing our food while sitting at our table on the outdoor deck, we paid the bill and then resumed some pleasantries in conversation as we started walking to return to the car to leave. To leave the heavy silence behind, the said words, the unsaid words, the weighty expectations, and the primal heartaches that were triggered when words were said and past experiences were relived. We drove with spotty surface conversation until we got out of Santa Fe, and then it was quiet for a while, and then I knew it was time, and I had to apologize and try and explain myself. And not try and make things anything worse.

Generally, my friend and I can talk pretty well and pretty candidly about life, which I appreciate. She is someone who is always positive about living and her future, even though she has known some very hard and cruel years. I admire her for the fact that even though she has been through some very hard times, she is full of passion, holds an optimistic outlook on life, and she is genuinely caring and warm with people. She strives to love people, and she is comfortable around messy people and the messiness of life. This gives her a pretty large capacity to just accept and be present with others, loving them as best and as fully as she can.

But she has her fragile moments as well, like when someone wanders into certain areas of her life and presses on a sore area of her soul that is still not healed, as I did. What I thought was merely a frustration being voiced instead was an emotional spear that reopened a wound in her that was deep and painful. I felt pretty horrible about how I led the afternoon into that situation, when I could see the pain fill her eyes. That was when I stopped and realized I had been kind of selfish on that day, and that I get that way with people I hunger to be close to.

But I gained some great feedback from her about myself out of the situation.

As I tried to explain myself, she became very gracious to me and listened to me. And in time, as a response to the things I shared with her, particularly about my weaknesses and hangups in almost every intimate relationship I have, she gave me these things:

1. Be honest with an issue, and do not be passive aggressive. If you have an issue with someone and something they’ve done, be up front and just state it to them. And remember, it is your problem- not anyone else’s. You choose your problems, ad how you will deal with them, or not deal with them.

2. It is not somebody else’s responsibility to fix your problems. Ultimately, you have to solve your problems on your own- even if the problem is with someone else and what they do, if their behavior impacts you or your feelings even. Only you can decide what you will do to deal with a problem.

3. You can reframe your story. You can quit thinking that the way you see something, the way you see experiences in your life, the way you interpret other’s behaviors or the effects of a circumstance is just how it is. You can choose to respond differently, to see differently, to feel differently about an issue you are dealing with, or a relationship you are in, or a pattern you live out day by day.

4. Ultimately, you cannot depend on others to make you feel happy or loved. Being happy and feeling loved (and choosing to love others) has to begin with yourself.

5. Once you identify negative agreements you’ve made with yourself in the past, you can break them. You don’t have to live with those negative untruths you have adopted about yourself, or how you think others think about you. You can replace negative agreements with the truth and not live under their domination.

It is hard to change as a person. It’s easy to make excuses and to look for reasons to stay the same, to live the same way and to do the same things day in and day out that leave you feeling dissatisfied or frustrated in life, and to find reasons for yourself to stay in the ruts you are in. It takes courage to change. And often it takes help from others. But it always takes a recognition that where you are or how you are is not where you want to be. We can only change when we realize that our current modes of behavior or our current attitudes and personal allowances aren’t working for us.

One bad script I struggle with pretty heavily is that I am not lovable as I am. This script leads me to set up expectations within myself that those I really care about will ultimately tire or get bored of me and throw me aside for someone else. And I place my expectations about being happy on the love I think I need to see demonstrated from significant others. This set of beliefs and expectations is a bad recipe for building relationships. If you can’t be happy unless certain people love you, you will never be happy. And chances are, if you are never happy, you will probably miss out on being involved and intimate with some pretty great people.

Some days I feel like I am growing and getting it, becoming stronger as a person and friend. Some days I feel pretty lost at it all. Still, you can’t make others love you. You can only do your best to love others, and fight the struggle to love yourself. I am grateful that daily I do have an opportunity to grow as a person.

God loves us. That’s why Jesus came into this world- and died. To give us the truth about ourselves, and to pour over us the love we need to discover that He is delighted with us, and we are immensely treasured by Him. We are supposed to love ourselves- “Because I do”, He says.

“I went to that cross for one main reason”, He says.

To give us His life. To let us know His truth. To let us know, and dwell in and from, His love.

Easter weekend or not, God is all about human resurrections.