Soap operas are full of drama, conflict, misunderstandings, and crises, and nothing is ever resolved. People’s whole lives are affected by one unanswered phone call or one unspoken word that would have changed everything, if only it had been spoken.

These are frustrating for me to watch because too many things in them remain unspoken. They don’t make sense to me. I don’t think it’s realistic to neglect making a little extra effort to make sure someone understands what you meant or what you understood. I try hard to get resolve in my dysfunctional relationships, so I don’t think people would give up so easily.
Yet some things about soap operas are true.

Here are some things soap operas can teach us about being healthier in our lives and relationships.

• It takes two people to make a relationship work, but it takes only one to ruin it. No matter how hard you try, you cannot have a healthy relationship if you’re the only one working on it.
• You can’t have a good relationship with an unhealthy person who takes offense at healthy things or who does unhealthy things without insight or remorse.
• Healthy relationships are never built on lies and untruths. If you don’t have trust, you have nothing to build a relationship on.
• Family secrets aren’t healthy. They can lead to generational dysfunction. If you are keeping family secrets, it might be time to expose them. Use wisdom in this decision. You may need advice from others.
• If you need to say something, say it. Don’t risk having your unsaid words lead to misunderstanding and painful outcomes.
• Be careful who you share personal details with. If the person won’t keep it confidential, you may create unnecessary problems for yourself.

If your family continues to have a lot of drama, make sure you aren’t adding to it by the way you act, react, and interact. Do your part to stop the drama. You don’t want to keep living a soap-opera life.
 

Relationship Devotional Prayer

 
God,

Help me to do my part to be healthy in all my relationships and to discontinue doing things that keep the drama going.
 

Relationship Devotional Challenge

• What area of your life could be a script in a soap opera?
• What can you do to ruin the script so it would no longer make for good TV?

Scripture Meditation

 
Proverbs 11:29

“Whoever brings ruin on their family will inherit only wind, and the fool will be servant to the wise” (NIV).

Proverbs 14:25

“A truthful witness saves lives, but a false witness is deceitful” (NIV).