Sometimes you stumble across just the right thing you need to hear for the situation you're in. Today, that happened to me in reading "The Cross of Christ" by John R. W. Stott (who looks extraordinarily similar to Bilbo Baggins). Here's what I read, perhaps it will help you too:
"If our peace-making is to be modeled on our heavenly Father's, however, we will conclude at once that it is quite different from appeasement. For the peace that God secures is never cheap peace, but always costly. He is indeed the world's preeminent peacemaker, but when he determined on reconciliation with us, his "enemies" who had rebelled against him, he "made peace" through the blood of Christ's cross (Col 1:20). To reconcile himself to us, and us to himself, and Jews, Gentiles and other hostile groups to each other, cost him nothing less than the painful shame of the cross. We have no right to expect, therefore, that we will be able to engage in conciliation work at no cost to ourselves, whether our involvement in the dispute is as the offending or offended party, or as a third party anxious to help enemies to become friends again.
What form might the cost take? Often it will begin with sustained, painstaking listening to both sides, the distress of witnessing the mutual bitterness and recriminations, the struggle to sympathize with each position, and the effort to understand the misunderstandings that have caused the communication breakdown. Honest listening may uncover unsuspected faults, which will in their turn necessitate their acknowledgment without resorting to face-saving subterfuges. If we are ourselves to blame, there will be the humiliation of apologizing, the deeper humiliation of making restitution where this is possible, and the deepest humiliation of all, which is to confess that the deep wounds we have caused will take time to heal and cannot light-heartedly be forgotten. If, on the other hand, the wrong has not been done by us, then we may have to bear the embarrassment of reproving or rebuking the other person, and thereby risk forfeiting his or her friendship. Although the followers of Jesus never have the right to refuse forgiveness, let alone to take revenge, we are not permitted to cheapen forgiveness by offering it prematurely when there has been no repentance. "If your brother sins," Jesus said, "rebuke him," and only then "if he repents, forgive him" (Lk 17:3)."
-From "The Cross of Christ" by John Stott (a book I highly recommend reading)
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