Gratitude for the Honest People

I am so grateful for honest people in my life.

I'm not talking about people who don't lie.  Although, those are good people to have in your life too.  I'm talking about the honest people who don't mind what other people think, don't need to "shape" their story to make themselves sound particularly heroic or victimized or ________.  I'm talking about people who share about struggles and joys with the same amount of passion and conversational time, neither one nor the other dominating the themes of their chats.  I'm talking about people who ask the difficult question and bring up the difficult topic.

I'm not a lover of conflict so I create strategies to avoid it, on a personal and professional level.  I've also been around long enough to know that conflict is one way the Kingdom advances in lives and in churches.  Honest conversations can create the conflict, but they also can be the way the healthy things grow out of it.

But that's just me thinking thoughts...