"What if the revelation came to us that, in fact, our earth-life experiences were divinely designed, even fabricated, to make those abrasive experiences (meaning contentious, dysfunctional, or broken relationships) possible, as a sort of laboratory in which we could work out our salvation.... Maybe we could ask ourselves: 'How shall we ever learn Christ-like love unless we have a chance to practice it in the face of the opposites?' Every disrupted relationship, whether in our own home or within a particular group or community, is a chance to forge the divine nature in ourselves and prepare for that endless state of happiness....
"It would appear that all the people in our lives are there for important reasons. We stand in a sacred relationship to them because we and they cannot be made perfect without each other. Nevertheless, we remember that seldom are they given to us primarily to satisfy us. Rather, they are given to us to make possible a much greater love than we would have been capable of in a situation where everybody agreed with us, everybody loved us, everybody saw everything the way we do. These abrasive people in our lives are friends in disguise. They are there to teach us to perfect love in ourselves, not to perfect them."
-Spiritual Lightening By M. Catherine Thomas
