Growth Needs Others

It is a long quote from Michael Casey's Living In The Truth, but so crucial for personal growth.  This truth is especially important for anyone who is having relationship issues.  "When God sets about purifying a human being, the process is accomplished in large measure by human agents.  This is because the components of our being which block our receptivity to grace are the very blemishes which other people find ugly.  The negative reactions of others serve as a mirror in which we can see reflected those deformations of character against which we need to struggle.  The pain we experience in being rejected acts as a purge to motivate us to make ourselves more genuinely lovable.  Any advance in this direction has the automatic effect of increasing our openness to the action of God.  Of course, one who refuses to acquiesce in the truth of others' reactions becomes more deeply entrenched in bitterness and recrimination and further away from love and God."  (page 207, n#2.)