Gathering together with friends and family around the Holidays is exciting, affirming, and fun. Well at least most of the time. The proximity of personalities of disparate views—even if they are kith and kin—can dampen and destroy the festive mood before the turkey is even carved. Good food and lots of hand washing will go a long way towards having a physically healthy holiday; knowing the ingredients of right relationships will help harmony to linger at least till the pumpkin pie appears!

During a family time in Scotland, I remember looking out over the wild waters of the North Sea and asking the Lord to help me see people the way He saw them. His voice eclipsed the crashing waves as He replied, “Then you must love them the way I love them.” Well, that was back in the days of trying to be like Jesus and such a pronouncement seemed impossible. It was—and I failed. If there were only one good reason to establish that Christ is our Life, this would be it—so that His love can flow from us to others in order to have healthy relationships with the people who populate our worlds. This is what we are left on earth for—to learn to live out Christ in the crucible of life; to reflect the life at the heart of the universe—the family of the Triune God in whom we are included.

Only that kind of unconditional love is adequate to meet the demands and the vagaries of every association. Our own supply of natural love is usually the first casualty when we disagree with one another. I wrote a book with a co-author whose views are diametrically opposed to mine. The whole point of the endeavor was to show that love and unity are more important than whatever strong opinions we espouse—in this case gender roles. My friend’s face was not the focus of my attention as I formulated my response to her outrageous opinions! While refuting her arguments, I still loved and respected her and it proved a unique and wonderful opportunity to let love rule. Though our stances were even stronger and more established at the end—our friendship was more cemented as well.

Natural affection appears to be evaporating from familial affiliations. We are aware of increasing reports of abuse, neglect, and abandonment at every level—parents betraying the children they were meant to protect and children in turn spurning parental standards and neglecting them at the close of their days. However, because we know that the knowledge of both good and evil inflicts casualities, the other end of the spectrum is equally unacceptable. What looks like enviable alternatives to the many faces of evil—affection, involvement, and attachment— are as devoid of agape love as overt abuse when they suffocate and control.

The working model of God’s love is described in the familiar thirteenth chapter of first Corinthians which extols patience, kindness, and long suffering. The opposite of this is what is sometimes referred to as toxic love—that which pollutes, poisons, and imprisons rather than sets free. Malcolm Smith describes this in his little book entitled Toxic Love, “Counterfeit love can be very impatient and even unkind to the person who does not respond to its manipulations; it shows itself as jealousy if it perceives that another is capturing the praise it seeks. Above all, it seeks its own… remembering, sometimes for years, the wrongs done against it.” We can all relate to adopting some of those attitudes some of the time.

For example, if our happiness and emotional meter is directly influenced by the kind of response we elicit from the object of our affection, then we know that it is human love at work: if our mood and day are ruined because of how someone does or does not respond to us, then we can label it toxic or co-dependent. I heard an apt definition of this common condition: when a co-dependent is on their deathbed, it is not their own life that passes before them, but the life of the one with whom they are unhealthily entangled.

However, while over-involvement is not healthy, neither is withdrawal from significant connections. When we have been wounded in relationships and are both weary and wary of close encounters, withdrawing is the welcome line of least resistance. It feels like a safety zone, but in truth it is a shell of selfishness molded by fear. The exit route from this suffocating cocoon is signposted—love, love and yet more love. So, in His strength we sally forth into the fray of human affairs once more, although they are always fraught with the possibility of hurt and failure. But the love of the Father knows no giving up.

Nor does He leave anyone out. The lepers, the untouchables who were banished in their communities in biblical times, are still among us. They no longer look like lepers from the outside yet they are often shunned and avoided because of our perception of their lifestyles and the blemishes they bring to our gatherings. The divorced, the addicted, and the homosexuals are among those who comprise our modern day misunderstood and marginalized elements of society. A dear friend who suffers an addiction wrote this to me recently. “I truly feel like a modern day leper. Nobody reaches out to me and if I did not make the first move, I would be totally alone.” This ought not to be. The perfect love flowing out of us will never discriminate among our dinner guests. That is the truth of the matter and love is always twinned with truth.

When we tell the truth we risk being misunderstood and acquiring a new foe. But remember, the wounds of a friend are better than the kisses of an enemy (Prov. 27:6). We are all familiar with Paul’s exhortation to speak the truth in love in order that we may all grow up into Christ (Eph. 4:25). If there is one thing harder than telling the truth, it has to be finding the right time to speak straight. I heard a disturbing account from a friend who was taken to task by a group—not one on one as is the biblical principle—for behaviors they deemed destructive. What could have been an act of caring was lost on a widow of but a few months whose broken heart could not handle another perceived onslaught of rejection. Both the telling and the timing have everything to do with love.

I am pretty impulsive and have been known to walk in where angels fear to tread, but I am slowly learning to go only when I get the Father’s green light. My plea to safeguard me from blundering is, “Lord, make them ready to hear what I am ready to say.” A close cousin to timing is motivation. We only have the right and privilege to speak into someone’s life if we have their trust and their best interests in mind. When we pause to examine the why of what we are about to say, we have time to assess whether the reason is to satisfy our needs, showcase our own self-righteousness or out of genuine concern for our friend’s welfare.

We can be powerful agents for redemptive change in a person’s life if we first examine the log in our own eye and acknowledge our own fallibility and proclivity to failure. Then, the likelihood of being heard and being healed is much higher. As Dr. Henry Cloud and John Townsend write in Boundaries Face to Face, “There is something very powerful about the one who was hurt being the one who wants to help. It is this humble approach that Jesus brought to the world. Our taking this same approach has a powerful melting effect on the offender. It is humbling in the best of ways, because we submit to love, not to our tendency to get even.”

Finding balance in our interactions is the task of a lifetime. Sometimes we are strident and accusatory because we are too lazy and self-centered to formulate a plan of engagement and we opt for blurting out truth sans love or, because we are both lazy and loveless, we adopt the ostrich posture and put our head in the sand—in classic denial of the aching need for the light of truth to stream into the world of our darkened relationships. Truth is an indispensable component in nurturing healthy connectedness to others.

Despite our most valiant efforts at loving unconditionally or telling the truth in a timely and tireless manner in order to improve our relationships, some of our connections may continue to be cold, strained, and disappointing. Now is the opportunity to relinquish all our sadness and disappointments to our God—a place of repose that trusts the Father of the family to complete the work that He has begun in each one of His beloved children. And He will.

If we feel that our love has been spurned, it is helpful to reflect that not everyone has the same capacity either to give or receive overt demonstrations of affection. This has proven most freeing for someone like me who has no trouble demonstrating affection. But, if we have taken up cudgels on behalf of another and are feeling unappreciated for our interference, then the greatest gift we get from this “no-no” is—never again! Recognizing the sanctity of each individual to deal with their own relationships is the greatest gesture of respect that we can bestow on another. Honoring the sacred space of another’s soul is the ultimate act of acceptance because we recognize the Life that dwells there: we respect this space as inviolate because it is the womb of God’s wondrous workings—the place of intimacy that He alone, the ultimate Lover, has a right to live and work.

Hear this wonderful scriptural injunction as we assess how to let go and accept others. “You all have a single Teacher, and you are all classmates. Don’t set people up as experts over your life, letting them tell you what to do. Save that authority for God; let him tell you what to do. And don’t let people maneuver you into taking charge of them. There is only one Life-Leader for you and them—Christ (Matt. 23:4-10 The Message). When we remember that the Father’s limitless love for us is the foundation of all relationships—including how we relate to ourselves—our connection to family and friends will become healthy, harmonious, and life giving—full of grace and truth.