When my children squabble, they shout loudly and I tell them they don’t need to shout: I can hear them.

When my children squabble, they point out how well they are doing and how evil the others are by comparison.

When my children squabble, they are so puffed up with their “rightness”, so aggrieved by my slowness to take their side.

When my children squabble, I see how very young they are, and how very little they understand. Their truths are true, but partial.

When my children squabble, there is anger. There are tears.

When my children squabble, I love them and am for them – and yet they seem frustrated. I think sometimes they would rather I were a referee than a refuge.

When my children squabble, I see their hearts, their sense of justice, their longing for fairness and understanding. I also see their pride, their caprice.

When my children squabble, I grieve for the hurt they are experiencing and the hurt they are dishing out in their immaturity.

When my children squabble, I remember that they will not always be children – one day they will see that the issue of who got the blue cup is petty, and that it doesn’t matter who sat in the middle seat or who got to stay up later.

When my children squabble, it makes me long for the day when perspective and maturity will allow them to treasure their siblings for the riches that they are.
And from time to time, when I read about Christians fighting AGAIN and calling names AGAIN and behaving badly AGAIN, each citing reasons why God is more on their side than the others’ side, then I wonder:

Is God looking down on us with a sigh and saying: “Look, my children are squabbling,”?

Kathy Escobar is hosting a fabulous synchroblog this month on bridging the divide between believers.  Check out some of the other wonderful posts from this series:

• The Virtual Abbess – Abi and April’s Synchroblog – Bridging the Divides 
• Caris Adel – Emotional Pacifism: Laying Down My Weapons 
• Ty Grigg – Speak Truth 
• Jon Huckins – Gay Marriage, World Vision, and a Unified Church? 
• Mark Votava – Faith Presence in the Parish 
• Mary at Lifeinthedport – let us meet in the borderlands
• Michael Donahoe – Healing Divisions in the Body of Christ  
• Jeremy Myers – Unity vs. Uniformity in the Church 
• Juliet at Still Learning – A Catholics Love Letter to Evangelical Women 
• Dago at Scripture Insights – Jesus the Divider 
• Glenn Hager – The Lowest Common Denominator 
• Sarah Quezada – Standing on Church Bridges 
• Doug Webster – Truth Is Not a Process, Belief Is
• Michelle Van Loon – Bridging the Divide 
• Happy at Simple Felicity – are we there yet? 
• Travis Klassen – The Church: Coming, Going, or Being 
• Bec Cranford – Biblical Interpretation and Inerrancy: Moving beyond myopia to a grander vision of unity
• Teresa Pasquale – Bridging the Divide: Translating Between Dialects, Culture Contexts, and Heart Stirring 
• Miguel Labrador – I might be willing to reconsider church hierarchies, if…
• Paul Meier – Healing the Divides Begins Within 
• Liz Dyer – You Can’t Get There From Here 
• K.W. Leslie – Humility 
• Kathy Escobar – 10 ways we can build bridges instead of bomb them 
• Loveday Anyim – The “non-Gospelized Rituals” of Pentacostalism 
• Caedmon Michael – Bridging the Divides
• Carly Gelsinger – “Church Shopping” at the Wrong “Mall”: A Story of Easter Sundays
• Mallory Pickering – A Splintered People
• Pastor Edwin Fedex – Tearing Down Fences and Building Sidewalks
• Jen Baros – Bridging the Divides: How to Heal 
• Burning Religion – The Impossible Space Between Us