Friendships in college are some of the tightest bonds that a person will ever have in their lifetime, outside of marriage. These are people that you live with, eat with, do everything with and tell your whole life (and the problems that go with it) to. These friends are some of the best friends one will ever have, which makes conflicts within them more challenging and more painful.
Stress and pain are unfortunately commonalities that we as humans feel. As humans, we are not capable of having perfectly glorious and healthy relationships. Grief and suffering are common emotions every now and again and tears and anger are likely results of these. You can never understand why we must go through these, but God does.
Christians are sinners, pure and simple. No matter how perfect we attempt to be, there is always failure. We always fall short, no ifs or buts about it. (Romans 3:23 For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.) It is impossible for us to be perfect. We will sin and others will sin on us. Yes, it stinks. Yes, no one likes it. Yes, you can't complain about it. We each have a nice plank in our possession (see Matthew).
Someone like myself or Casey Anthony or Conrad Murray are all seen the same by God. We all have been convicted of sin. What we must remember, however, are the feelings of love, compassion and forgiveness that MUST be present. If we wrong someone and they graciously forgive us, it makes sense to forgive them with the same compassion, no? Or, think about it this way: Christians sinned and turned their backs to God so many times, yet He always forgave them and loved them just as He had before. If we don't love and forgive each other for the sin we have placed on someone, then we are straight-up denying Luke 17:3-4 (So watch yourselves! “If another believer sins, rebuke that person; then if there is repentance, forgive. Even if that person wrongs you seven times a day and each time turns again and asks forgiveness, you must forgive.”)
Saying this, I know and completely understand how hard it is to quickly bounce back. I'm not saying to automatically forgive. The phrase 'forgive and forget' is a kind of contradiction. It's very hard to forgive something so dreadful and hurtful. However, when we forgive our friends for our misdoings, we glorify God that much more.
And that's the ultimate goal, no?
