Article January 1, 2003 ISSUE

“The situation seemed impossible to resolve”

Solène Roux—Clamart, France

I found out that one of my best friends was going out with a boy who didn't have a very good reputation. So, I decided to tell her that maybe it wasn't good for her to be going out with him. She got mad and told her boyfriend everything I had said to her. And then he didn't want anything to do with me because he thought I wanted to break them up.

For months my friend ignored me. I didn't know what to do. I didn't think of praying about it at first, because the situation seemed impossible to resolve.

One Sunday morning I decided to speak to my Sunday School teacher about it. She reminded me that I was passing judgment on my friends and giving them all these negative labels. But since I had genuinely wanted to help my girlfriend and do something good for her, there was no reason for things to turn out badly.

My teacher also told me that even if the situation didn't get resolved immediately, I shouldn't get discouraged. The truth was that my friend was forgiving and caring because she was God's creation, and so was her boyfriend. Hurt feelings and anger could not stop us from talking to each other.

I left Sunday School feeling very calm. I no longer had that lump in my throat. Up to that point I had felt haunted by this problem. Also, my friend and her boyfriend went to the same school as I did, so I saw them all the time.

Then, one day, I saw my girlfriend on the street. She didn't even look at me, but I kept right on knowing that she was God's creation. This was very clear to me.

On the Internet, my friends and I have chats. That same evening I noticed she was online. Something told me to message her, and she answered very nicely. There had been a radical change since that afternoon. We quickly talked about the whole disagreement. Later we saw each other again. And since then, we've never had another problem, even though she's still with the same boy.

There's a sentence in Science and Health that helped me a lot during this conflict. It says, “Hold thought steadfastly to the enduring, the good, and the true, and you will bring these into your experience proportionably to their occupancy of your thoughts” (p. 261 ). Every time I had a bad thought about my friend, I would think about what this meant.

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“Will you forgive me?”
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