She snapped, yelled, spewed her frustration and those piercing words broke my heart. With an injured pride, I packed up my bags, said goodbye to her husband and kids whom I considered as my little nieces and nephew, picked up my car keys and left. Her attempt to follow me to the car and convince me to return to the house to talk failed. I was too hurt to even confess that those words had pierced like a sword. 

The next day, we found ourselves at a friend’s house, but our eyes barely met. There was an elephant in the room and the pain was still fresh. For a year, we did not call or write. The following year, we saw each other at a church and embraced one another, but the intimate complicity we used to share was frozen by that unspoken, unresolved issue we never confronted. I could never stop recollecting how our friendship used to be vs. what it was after “the incident”. I often regretted how that scuffle seemed to have destroyed our friendship of 18 years. 

One day, however, I received a text message from her—a text message I never dreamed would ever come. She expressed how she missed me and wished we could talk to each other like in the old times and I reciprocated those same emotions. Quite quickly, we connected over the phone. We talked as if nothing had ever happened and then she brought it up. She apologized for what had happened two years prior and explained what had really been at the root of her frustration that day. I cried and expressed how I had felt about everything that had happened, and as we were confessing to one another, it felt like water had been poured over the fire that was burning in our hearts. When we confessed our sins and asked for each other’s forgiveness, we committed ourselves to never let any time pass by without confronting and confessing the pain together. 

How can you forgive what you do not confront? You cannot, you have to confront what is in your heart, confess it, and then you can experience healing. On that day, James 5:16 became very real to us and a spiritual invisible wall of division broke down and through that breakthrough we received healing.