It’s a story that is repeated on every elementary school playground, nearly every day in our country.

Two fourth-graders get into it during recess; something about “he did this, so I did that” and it kind of goes south from there. When they get back to class, Billy trips Joey. After lunch, Joey breaks Billy’s pencil on purpose. When nobody is looking, Billy writes on Joey’s desk, and later, Joey steals Billy’s folder.

After school, Billy and his friends face Joey and his friends, and they call each other names. Somebody gets hurt. Somebody else gets hurt worse. And then there is no telling when or if these conflicts will ever end.

Sound familiar? We have all experienced this sort of escalating pettiness and we readily admit that it is silly.

But I would suggest to you that we can remove the names “Billy” and “Joey” and insert the words “husband” and “wife” and the story is much the same.

Or we could insert the names of two rival high schools, or two rival companies, or “The Hatfields” and “The McCoys.” Or Republicans and Democrats, or “pro-life” and “pro-choice,” or Israel and Palestine, or Russia and Ukraine.

Conflict at any level is conflict. And if not preventable, most conflict is at least resolvable…but not until one side refuses to retaliate and instead decides to reconcile.

Thanks to Steve Molin for these words.

Think of a time when YOU refused to retaliate and instead decided to reconcile.

JESUS DIED FOR YOU, KNOWING YOU MIGHT NEVER LOVE HIM BACK. THAT IS TRUE LOVE!