00:00:01 Many years ago, I started working at a firm,
00:00:05 and I helped a sister to get a position
00:00:08 at the same firm.
00:00:10 As time went on, I may have come
00:00:13 to the wrong conclusion, but I felt
00:00:16 that this sister wanted to be in charge.
00:00:18 I didn’t feel very happy about it.
00:00:22 A few months later, I was retrenched from work.
00:00:27 I felt very hurt.
00:00:30 My mother always told me
00:00:32 to be the “lesser one” and just to let things go.
00:00:36 So I kept quiet, and I left the firm.
00:00:40 Because of certain circumstances,
00:00:43 we changed congregations, so we didn’t see each other anymore.
00:00:48 During those years, at the meetings
00:00:51 or reading the Bible,
00:00:53 we were regularly reminded to be forgiving.
00:00:57 It felt to me like a stab in my heart
00:01:02 because I knew we had to apply this counsel.
00:01:09 Being at the convention, every time,
00:01:12 made me a bit nervous
00:01:16 because I basically had to prepare myself.
00:01:19 Should I bump into her,
00:01:22 how was I going to handle it?
00:01:24 It did ruin the spiritual atmosphere of the convention.
00:01:31 Soon after my mother passed away,
00:01:34 we had our regional convention.
00:01:37 I was very emotional.
00:01:39 I saw this sister standing there, and I wondered to myself,
00:01:42 ‘What is going to happen now?’
00:01:45 She came up to me;
00:01:47 she gave me a hug and a small present.
00:01:51 That particular day,
00:01:54 I definitely felt relieved and I felt
00:01:58 that I could now make peace.
00:02:01 If both of us had applied earlier
00:02:05 the advice given at Colossians 3:13
00:02:09 by being forgiving,
00:02:11 neither of us would have had to carry
00:02:14 this emotional burden for so many years.
00:02:18 Now I am very happy to say,
00:02:21 Mona and I are good friends today.
00:02:27 We serve together in the same congregation
00:02:29 as elders, and the relationship
00:02:32 that I have today with Luis is that we’re friends.
00:02:35 But when we transferred it to the workplace,
00:02:37 that beautiful friendship began to fade.
00:02:42 Well, as a builder,
00:02:44 I’m old-school and used to being in charge.
00:02:47 Perhaps I was too proud.
00:02:49 But somebody couldn’t come and tell me how to do certain things.
00:02:53 Since I was the crew leader, I said right from the start:
00:02:56 “So, what is he doing here?
00:02:59 Does he have any right to an opinion about this?”
00:03:03 So I made sure to push the brother aside completely.
00:03:06 I can remember that when I entered the Kingdom Hall through one door
00:03:10 and I saw Brother Luis,
00:03:12 I would look for any possible excuse to avoid him.
00:03:16 I wouldn’t even say hello.
00:03:18 Neither of us said hello.
00:03:21 For me, the internal battle between the fleshly-minded person
00:03:25 and the spiritual person was a very tough battle.
00:03:29 It was like that for several years.
00:03:31 And now I think, ‘I wasted time.’
00:03:36 Something that would have helped me to maintain peace and unity
00:03:39 with my brother would have been to be obedient to what Jehovah says,
00:03:43 to what the Bible says, and to what we hear at the meetings.
00:03:48 Sadly, I wasn’t obedient.
00:03:52 The lesson that I have learned from this is that Jehovah is always right.
00:03:58 In the exact moment when something happens,
00:04:00 we should immediately act.
00:04:03 Carlos Henry himself was the one that then stopped me and told me,
00:04:07 “We can’t keep going on like this.”
00:04:10 He took a very important step
00:04:13 so that we could sort things out.
00:04:16 To be happy, you have to apply the principles you find in God’s Word.
00:04:21 The words at Romans 14:19
00:04:24 encourage us to “pursue the things making for peace.”
00:04:29 What I would’ve done differently is that I wouldn’t have let time go by.
00:04:35 Instead, I should have sought out the brother
00:04:37 more promptly and restored that friendship again.
00:04:41 Although it’s true that you can’t recover time,
00:04:44 you can recover a brother.
00:04:46 My relationship, once again, with Luis is that we are friends,
00:04:50 and he’s a true friend.
