Playing the blame game is no fun, especially because it’s a game you often play alone, and no one really wins. Blaming can be like an infection that affects everyone in its grasp. The person blaming often becomes bitter. The person blamed often builds a wall. Everyone in the middle is usually trapped in the middle of the whole messy matter. If not careful, blame can implode an association.

Blame is often passed when one person didn’t live up to another’s expectations, whether those expectations were verbally shared, secretly harbored or even feasible. Blame has been the culprit that has kept division where there once was, or should be unity. Blame is frequently behind family fallout, parent/child issues, spousal matters and failed employee relations. Many associations have been ruined because of the five letter word BLAME.

A lot of blame that I would render toward others was generated in my wacky thought that someone’s “something” affected my “positive” negatively. A lot of blame that I’ve been on the receiving end of comes from not “helping” someone or “doing” what others thought I should be doing for, or with them. Blame can wreak havoc in relationships! Yes, relationships are meant to help. But they’re not meant to hinder either party involved, and certainly should not interfere with what God might desire to do in, for and through someone, and not always at the hands of those we most expect.

Being mindful of not blaming or being mad at people for not living up to your expectations (especially when they are unfair, unrealistic or unvoiced) takes a lot of sting out of blame’s bite. Take the time to find out if what’s going on in your mind concerning the person is actually accurate. Step outside of yourself, your need and your thought process to see if there was a reason bigger than you for the person not being or doing what you thought he or she should. Have a healthy, mature and intelligent conversation that isn’t fueled by emotions, but by a desire to make things better. And before you do consider that:

• You may be wrong about the person, and your blame misplaced. (Stranger things have happened, but you may actually be wrong in your thinking about a person even if the people around you co-sign.)
• They simply may not be in a position to help you. (Take it from me, sometimes people have a LOT going on in their own lives and can’t help in your particular area of need.)
• Your silence has been less than golden. (Like one of my favorite episodes of “A Different World” when Whitley Gilbert was mad at then boyfriend Julian for not knowing that it was her birthday even though she never told him, people only know what you open up and tell them. Don’t blame others when you haven’t shared what they need to know.)
• They may not know how to help you. (Sometimes people simply don’t know what to do to help you or be there for you when they’re also having to do and be for themselves.)
• They may not be meant to help you. (Don’t always assume that the same people are responsible for always being the same way to you in your life. Roles change. Different people enter in to help and that doesn’t have to discount or cause you to disconnect from the ones that have been there all along.)
• They may love you, but have worn weary of helping you. (That’s real talk. Sometimes people have simply met their limit of assistance.)
• God may want to handle the situation or help you on His own in His own way. (And no matter how hard we try to insert others, if He wants to do it on His own there’s nothing we can do about it.)

-Angela Moore