My husband and I have just returned from Berlin where we were staying for a few days. We took some time to visit historical sites of the Berlin Wall, memorials etc and as usual it got me thinking!

In hindsight (that good old 20/20 vision) how sad, senseless and hurtful it was to build such a wall, dividing families, friends and loved ones, because of differences. But I began to see how easy it is to allow walls to be built in so many aspects of our lives. Small hurts, bigger misunderstandings, presumptions and suspicion are some of the bricks we use to build a wall between people with whom we once had so much in common. We cement these walls together with unhealthy talk about the “other”, what they said, how they went about it and how wrong they were/are and how justified we are in distancing ourselves from them.

It takes a bit of a revolution (one dictionary definition says a revolution is a turn-around) to cause walls to come down, and a revolution is a movement by people against an established (government or political) system.

Sometimes the hurts and disappointment, the misunderstandings and presumptions, have become “established systems” in our life and the pain and anger of the injustice of things caused walls to be erected.  Walls that shut out, not only the people who caused the pain and disappointments, but walls that trap us in or out of living life freely and fully. We may think we live on the “west” and not the “east”, but we are still not free to moving around in a once beloved city!

It takes movement on the part of the people to bring down those walls and it takes movement on our part, however justified we feel, to bring about a revolution in our lives to see barriers come down, forgiveness to be extended and peace talks to begin!

A bridge is a better way… it makes a way over small streams and mighty rivers and brings a freedom to both sides!

How revolutionary are you?