**Editor’s Note: The following is a guest post by Aaron Stern, pastor of the Mill, the college and 20-somethings ministry at New Life Church in Colorado Springs, CO. He is also a good friend and responsible for my wife and I meeting.

A few years ago I sat in my living room with a group of friends and asked the question, “What is the definition of friendship?” The answers were diverse, fun, deep and rich with experience. There were however a few big ideas that rose to the surface.

A friendship is characterized by enjoyment, trust and selflessness. In true friendship, all the feelings are mutual and, in the end, the friend is more important than the relationship itself.

I know now that I have great friends. How do I know? My wife and I just went through a crisis.

Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “Crisis doesn’t make the man; it only exposes him for what he already is.” I think friendships are similar. Crisis doesn’t make friendships; it only exposes what is already there.

These last two months have been the most difficult times of our lives. We lost our baby girl when we were eight months pregnant. My wife gave birth; we had a memorial service, picked a headstone and buried a piece of our soul — something no parents should ever have to do.

Through it all, we have felt the incredible strength of friendship. We have been surrounded by people we thoroughly enjoy. People we trust implicitly with our exposed, hurting souls and broken dreams. We have experienced selflessness in the prayers, the meals made, the trips to the hospital in the middle of the night, the flowers, the gifts, the cards, the visits and the phone calls. And in this journey we discovered another characteristic of friendship that I would like to add to the description formulated not long ago in my living room.

Friends are those who walk through life with you.

Not just the fun times but the really difficult ones too. One of the most amazing things we have witnessed through this season of loss has been our friends grieving with us. Not just the “I feel so sad” kind of grief but an outright, wholehearted weeping, feeling the pain and carrying the burden in our darkest hour. They walked with us through the heartache and, in some measure, experienced it themselves.

John 15:13 says, “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” Of course Jesus was the perfect example of a friend. For me, though, the idea of Him laying down his life has seemed a bit one dimensional…shown only on the cross. However, I think there is more to it.

Jesus also laid down His life by coming from a perfect heaven to a broken earth. He is Immanuel, the God that came near to our lives and walks through it with us. David captures this idea so eloquently in Psalm 23, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.” He doesn’t just give us the advice necessary to navigate life or say to us, “Meet you on the other side.” He walks straight through it all with us.

True friends walk through life with you. All of it. The ups. The downs. The highs. The lows. The best parts. The worst parts. The happy days. The sad days. All of it.

We are supposed to have friendships like that. We were designed to experience community like this. It encourages the weary soul, provides supporting strength, beats off the storms of loneliness, rallies when you feel out of steam, energizes the heart and keeps you leaning toward Jesus. We need it.

So do we have to wait for a crisis to find out if we have crisis-worthy friendships? No, we can make an honest evaluation today. Do we have friendships or merely acquaintances? Would our friends jump on an airplane at a moment’s notice, wherever they might be in the world, to come be at our side?

Wisdom says that to have a friend is to be a friend, so find out where your friends are and what they are facing and walk with them through it. Be to them the friend you hope to have when your tough time comes.

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If you are married you can be certain that there will be conflict. Conflict can either destroy a marriage or make it stronger, it all depends on how you view it and how you choose to deal with it. My last marriage post, Top 5 Reasons for Marital Conflict, dealt with the primary sources of contention. As Aaron Stern, pastor and close friend, is fond of telling married couples, “All conflicts are the result of unrealistic, uncommunicated or unmet expectations.”

This post is about knowing how to do conflict well. It may seem like an oxymoron to some, but there is a good way and a bad way to do conflict. The bad way ends in avoidance, hurt, frustration and unresolved issues. The good way of doing conflict ends in greater trust, love, understanding and a resolution. Stern gave my wife and I the following rules just before we were married and they have allowed conflict to help, rather than hurt, our marriage.

RUMBLE RULES:

Don’t hurt each other – physical or otherwise, this is non-negotiable. If you cannot fight without hurting each other there are serious issues that need to be resolved quickly. Seek a good marriage counselor.

Don’t bargaining/threaten – For example, if you don’t do this I won’t have sex with you. Individual rights are secondary to the health of the relationship. The definition of love is a laying down of your life for the benefit of another. A healthy marriage is one where both partners understand that they have essentially given up their individual rights in service of their spouse. As with most aspects of marriage, this only works when both people are operating under these parameters, constantly trying to out-serve the other.

Don’t bring up the past – love keeps no record of wrongs. Too often people in a relationship keep a running tally of offenses in their head to use as ammunition in future fights. “Go into relationships with eyes wide open…get married with eyes half shut,” says Stern. It is best to approach each issue on its own rather than hitting your spouse with an avalanche of grievances.

Don’t attack the foundations – For example, starting out with a disagreement over paying bills on time or showing up late to dinner and jumping straight to “you don’t love me,” or “you don’t trust me.” The conflict may have been quite small, but by attacking foundations you now just poured gasoline on it and lit the match.

Don’t go out looking to drum up support – Don’t go out and tell your friends, “Guess what my spouse did the other night!” The purpose of marriage is to protect your spouse not to throw them to the wolves. Also, it is rarely a good idea to bring your in-laws into your conflict. Their bias towards their own child makes the situation sticky.

Set up Systems – Do whatever you need to ensure the conflict is productive and safe. If you have a bad tendency to interrupt each other, go elementary-school style and use a talking stick. Whoever is holding the stick has the floor and the other person must sit silently and listen until they have the stick. If one partner needs 10 minutes of cool-down time before discussing the issue, make allowances for that.

Don’t exaggerate/polarize – Avoid using terms such as, “always” or “never,” which are rarely accurate and polarize the conversation. The tendency in any fight is to take an extreme position to emphasize your point. The result of this, your partner then takes their position to the extreme opposite side making it much harder to find any sort of middle ground.

When my wife and I first started dating we got into a huge fight over whether she would stay at home with our kids or not. Things started off fine (our views were actually quite similar), but went downhill quickly. By the end she was vowing to never have kids and I was demanding 10 children and that she stay barefoot and pregnant doing housework the rest of her life. In reality, this was not what either of us wanted, but in an effort to prove our points we exaggerated greatly and polarized the discussion.

Even the word “conflict” makes some people shudder. The idea of confrontation is uncomfortable, but by learning to fight clean you can take the sting out of conflict and make it a very useful and valuable aspect of your marriage.

Other useful marriage posts:
- Say What You Need
- Top 5 Reasons for Marital Conflict

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After publishing my last post dealing with marriage, Say What You Need, I received some feedback indicating that more content in this area would be appreciated. Since I want this blog to be incredibly useful to my readers I started to look at my marriage and discern what has made it so successful thus far. As I indicated in my last marriage post, a lot of credit must go to Aaron Stern, pastor of theMill in Colorado Springs, CO, who led us through our pre-marital counseling and put tools in our hands to build a marriage that will last.

If you are married there is one thing that is certain: there will be conflict. It is impossible to live with someone day after day, for years on end without having some type of conflict. One of the keys to marital success is adopting a view that conflict is good! What?! Yes, conflict is good! Conflict always presents an opportunity for couples to work through issues and come out stronger on the other end. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating you start picking fights with your spouse for fun, but taking the fear out of conflict goes a long way in helping couples confront their issues.

Some of you may be reading this getting ready to bounce because you are not married and don’t feel this will apply to you…wait…if you are ever even thinking about getting married some day, this information will be useful for you as you begin surveying the land for potential mates.

The following is a list of the top five reasons for marital conflict:

1) a failure of communication

2) financial difficulties

3) sexual difficulties

4) problems with in-laws

5) disagreements over child rearing

“All conflicts are the result of unrealistic, uncommunicated or unmet expectations,” explains Aaron Stern. If you are already married, these should highlight areas to openly discuss often with your spouse. What are your expectations in each of these areas? If you disagree, how do you intend to work things out?

If you are unmarried, look at these as things to discuss with your boyfriend/girlfriend or fiancee before starting marriage in order to work out some ground rules before jumping in without clear expectations. Don’t wait until you get married and then realize that while you had always wanted 10 children your spouse doesn’t want any. Discussing your expectations clearly, early and often in each of these areas will go a long way to strengthen your marriage.

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