Keeping the Peace at Christmas

Inviting Christ’s Love Into Challenging Relationships

By Jill Briscoe

With Christmas around the corner, are there some relatives you are dreading seeing? How do you keep the peace and handle those relationship challenges?

Paul writes, “Love is patient and kind” (1 Cor. 13:4). Most of us find that we can love those who are easy to love, but what about those who are hard to love or those who drive us up the wall? I used to laugh at mother-in-law jokes until I became one. Then I entered a whole new world and found this traditionally hard relationship a challenge!

Our daughter, Judy, and I have a seminar we teach together on the story of Ruth and Naomi. I tell the story of what happened when my mother-in-law came to stay with us in America for three months and while here discovered that she had cancer.

Up to that point in our relationship, I had had no intention of anything more than a truce between us for the holidays. Certainly I had no plans to love her as God wanted me to, not that visit anyway. However, the discovery of her cancer changed everything. As Mother stayed with us in America and began to undergo treatment, I knew God had to do a deep, radical work in my life if I was to be able to nurse her to the end.

I went to talk to our family doctor, who was a wonderful Christian. I was honest with him. “Try as I might, I don’t want her to stay with us,” I blurted out. “I can’t love her enough!”