Rome Wasn’t Built in a Day
“Rome wasn’t built in a day.” Growing up, that was my dad’s favorite saying when I was being impatient. Of course, I would roll my eyes or sigh in response. Hindsight offers a rich perspective, and it turns out dad was right - life is a process. What a profound fact to ponder in our instant-gratification, feelings-centered, disposable culture.
Rome wasn’t built in a day. Valuable things never are. Building takes time, persistence, consistency, and hard work. Through time and determination, the transforming power of the building process becomes clear. Relationships paint a beautiful picture of this truth.
Imagine Rome and all its magnificent architecture and buildings. How did people in 753 BC build such incredible structures? Slowly, one stone at a time. The Roman Colosseum took almost a decade and an estimated 60,000 slaves to complete. Large pieces of stone were cut and moved across miles, concrete was mixed and poured without modern machinery, carving and carpentry done by hand — astounding.
Solid, deep relationships are also built in layers. It’s easy to lose sight of that when feelings get hurt, and expectations aren’t met.
Yet, with every interaction, we have the opportunity to strengthen and nourish our relationships.
As I think back over years of building relationships with the people close to me, I recognize a shift in my perspective. My approach to hurt, disappointment and misunderstanding has changed as God has shown me the power of choosing my responses wisely. In the middle of hurt and disappointment, choosing our responses well is no small feat. Feelings, I’ve discovered, are not inclined to listen to logic. This is why it is crucial that I have anchored myself to God rather than navigating my feelings and disappointment alone.
My pain tells me to move away from the person who hurt me, yet God asks me to press in.
Take, for example, a Tuesday not too long ago, when I fell apart. Actually, things started going downhill on Monday. Recounting the details of the situation that caused me to spiral into an emotional breakdown would likely make you laugh. In the moment, however, the emotion was deep and genuine.
It was the straw that broke the camel’s back, the thing that pushed my heart right over the edge. My mind began to spin, and my feelings begged me to believe lies like —
No one understands me
My feelings aren’t important
I am not loved as deeply as I thought, maybe not at all
These people would be happier without me
And the worst lie of them all — they don’t want to understand how I feel. This was not the first time I had felt this hurt, and my feelings were confident it would never change.
So I found myself, on a Tuesday morning, with tears that refused to stop flowing. Somewhere in between the tears, I prayed, “Lord, I don’t know what to do with these feelings. Help me know how to move forward in a way that honors you.”
I wonder where you go with your hurt feelings? What do you do when you face a situation that seems like it will never change? What do you do when you find yourself overwhelmed with emotions that do not want to agree with what you know is true?
Through time and heartache, I’ve learned that following my feelings doesn’t lead to the kind of relationships I desire. I want to be a girl whose words and actions honor Jesus. When I feel hurt, I take a thoughtful pause and give myself space to pray and consider. I hand God my hurts, disappointments, and uncertainty, confident He will take care of me. Then I ask Him to help me see the best way to move through the hurt.
I ask Him to show me where my attitude doesn’t reflect Him
I ask Him to soften my heart and the heart of others involved
I ask Him to give me the words to speak
I ask Him to help me choose actions that honor Him
I ask Him that, through my circumstances, myself and others could be drawn closer to Him
When I honor Jesus, He gives me opportunities to honor others. Not by my strength or righteousness, but because of His spirit that lives in me.
How do I know this is true? I have seen it happen over and over again, and this time was no different.
God showed me his deep love for me very clearly on that Tuesday I fell apart. First, I received a text message from a friend asking me to meet her for lunch. A friend whose life is overwhelmingly full and never has a random day to go to lunch, but that day she did, and she just so happened to think of me.
Later I received another text message, out of nowhere, from a friend saying how much she loves and appreciates me, and she doesn’t say it enough. Just because. Neither of these friends knew the situation I was facing that day, but God did, and He prompted them to reach out exactly when I needed it most.
God’s got me covered, which gives me the confidence and freedom I need to look at the other person’s needs.
That Tuesday evening, I had an opportunity to have a conversation wiith the person who hurt my feelings. They listened to my heart and tried to understand where I was coming from, and I did the same. In the end, we had moved forward through some things that had blocked our path for a while. I walked away feeling our relationship was stronger and closer than it had been before. We built another layer, and things felt more sure.
Do conversations always go that way? No. Do some conversations end without resolution? Yes. Do I sometimes react out of my emotions? Absolutely. Does an engineer sometimes need to go back to the drawing board and make adjustments to the building? Yes, indeed. That’s part of the building process too. Sometimes things don’t go the way I hoped, sometimes I fall short, sometimes I let my emotions get the best of me. Sometimes the other person isn’t ready to move forward yet.
God has a solution for those moments, too — grace. God has abundant grace for me and you. He knows I am in progress, and He allows room for me to be human. Because I have been given such abundant grace, I have the freedom to give abundant grace to myself and others.
Life is a process — a messy, beautiful, challenging, surprising process. Honestly, one of my favorite things about life is that process means potential. Potential in relationships, potential in difficult circumstances, potential in all things to change, grow and move forward.
Whether or not we embrace the process, that is up to us. Each of us has an opportunity to examine the attitudes, habits, and patterns that hurt our relationships and make a change. We decide if we are going to look for the potential to grow through hurt and disappointment. If we choose wisely, God helps us to build healthier mindsets, healthier interactions, and healthier connections with others as we grow in Him — one layer at a time.
Just like Rome, deep, meaningful relationships aren’t built in a day. With God’s help, I’m going to keep learning to enjoy the process.