Step 8 Healing Broken Relationships

Step Eight – We made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to all.

Relationships matter.  Jesus taught us that a loving relationship with God and with others is the foundation of our new life as Christians and persons in recovery.  We must continue to do the work that will heal our relationship with other people.

Your life in Christ makes you strong and His love comforts you. You have fellowship with the Spirit, and you have kindness and compassion for one another. I urge you, then to make me completely happy by having the same thoughts, sharing the same love, and being one in soul and mind. Don’t do anything from selfish ambition or from a cheap desire to boast, but be humble towards one another, always considering others better than yourselves. And look out for one another’s interest, not just for your own. (Philippians 2:1-4)

We build toxic relationships because we are needy and our approach to relationship often comes from a place of need rather than from a place of love and blessing. We carry a deep need to be loved.  God created us that way.  God certainly does mean for us to share in loving relationships, but, God's plan is that we do that with an approach of giving and blessing rather than needing and getting.  The latter is the basic way we have let others down.   We need to make the shift from needing and getting to seeking the good of others first. That's the fundamental change we must make before sorting out our many broken interactions with others.

We must give up the "right" and expectation that others must appreciate, accept and care for us.  We need to continue, with God's help, to form safe and caring relationships with healthy people.   Healthy relationships will only happen when we stop seeking to build relationships on our need for safety and caring or, on the other person’s need for the same.  God’s way is that we find what we need as we come together with an attitude to first bless and share God's goodness together.  As we give to each other without expectation, God will give to us.

See how much the Father has loved us! His love is so great that we are called God’s children—and so, in fact, we are. This is why the world does not know us: it has not known God. My dear friends, we are now God’s children, but it is not yet clear what we shall become. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He really is. Everyone who has this hope in Christ keeps himself pure, just as Christ is pure. (1 John 3:1-3)