If you go back far enough in our Barnes family tree, you'll find a great-great grandmother who brutally squashed a budding romantic relationship.  Reminds me of the scene out of the movie, The Notebook.  The pain of her manipulation must have been horrific.

Fast forward a couple of generations to the present - I loved so many things about my extended family, but in part because we were a family of Type A’s, we didn’t manage conflict well.  I learned that it was unsafe to speak my mind and developed a bad habit – I became passive-aggressive.  Better to shut down rather than risk World War III with people stronger than me.

The problem is, that kind of behavior makes for poor leadership.  As a leader responsible for telling the truth no matter how ugly it may seem, some time ago I saw my dysfunction and determined to change.  The Bible asks us to tell the truth in love, but actually learning to do that is tough. Conflict can be painful.

As I became more and more involved in mediating other people’s disputes, I saw that burying the conflict only made the day of reckoning worse.  The original issue becomes encrusted with the barnacles of other complicating factors.  You begin to formulate arguments and have conversations in your head.

This kind of behavior can create huge, gaping wounds in a person’s mind.  Unless the wounds are treated through a round of truth-telling, they become infected and begin to create passive-aggressive habits, habits that eventually undermine your character.

The way back to healthy living is through the pain.  You have to try to tell the truth in love.  It will hurt for a season, but only the truth can set you free.

Hey, all of us have got dysfunction of one sort or another in our families, and if you're like me, some of it may have seeped into the way you relate to other people.  You know it's not how you want to be, so maybe today is the day to decide to take action.  Take some time to ask God to reveal the tough conversations you’ve put off.  Ask him to show you what to say and when to say it.  He’ll give you a doorway through the pain.