How about this for a story of reconciliation: After working side by side for the same moving company, two men, Gary Nisbet and Randy Joubert finally discovered that they were not only long-lost brothers, but actually identical twins separated at birth and adopted into different families.  Truth can be more surprising than fiction!

For weeks people had joked with them about how much they looked alike as they rode in the same delivery truck together in Waldoboro, Maine.  Finally, something clicked with Randy. He pulled Gary aside and said, “This is going to sound bizarre, but were you adopted?” Gary, looked puzzled, then confirmed that he was in fact adopted.  They compared notes and found out that they shared the same birthday and – amazingly – the same birth parents.  They could only stared each other and disbelief. 

This story makes a shake our heads in wonder.  What a small and amazing world! Yet there is something painful here as well.  How many of us have some estranged relationships with a personal we DO know, someone who really should be close to us but is not.  Some happenstance event, some careless word or impulsive decision drove a wedge between us that has grown into a chasm and has kept us apart.  For Gary and Randy it was someone else’s choice that made the separation. For us it might have been our own choice.  That means we can, by another choice do something about it, take a step heal them that.

Prayer can play a key role in relationship reconciliation.  In fact, relationship reconciliation absolutely plays a key role in prayer.  Jesus says in Matthew 6 that forgiveness and relationship rift is a precondition to God hearing in answering prayer.  Likewise, when we’re willing, prayer and God’s help can pave the way for restoration in relationship. 

Do a quick audit on your own relationships.  Is there a rift separating you from someone significant?  What are you losing by losing this person’s involvement in your life?  Offer prayer now asking God to begin a healing here.  Ask God to bless this person, and to give you courage, strength, and wisdom to cultivate reconciliation.  Ask God for the opportunity to do what you can, and faith to trust him to do the rest, and perhaps bring about a surprising – though maybe not quite as dramatic – reunion.