A Kinder, Gentler Letter to a Friend

I just want to write to tell you that I love you. I love your honesty. Your heart is not hard and cold like so many who have been hurt and I am thankful for that.

Someone hurt me the other day. After my initial feelings including shock, revulsion, anger, grief, etc., I realized that my situation hadn't changed. All those feelings had been lurking beneath the surface all along. This wound only made an opening for them to come out. Their coming out seems to be a necessary part of my healing process. I cannot continue to harbor those negative feelings if I truly choose to forgive. I may not be able to get rid of grief, but anger and revulsion have no place in a heart of forgiveness. I need so much help to do what I want to do. I want to forgive because I have been forgiven so much. I want to love because I am so loved. I want to truly wish the best for those that have hurt me.

I am convinced that we are all capable of being heartless and cruel. The Spirit of God that is in us or alongside us, even when we don't believe is the only thing that keeps us from degenerating into something horrible… without feeling or remorse. I'm thankful that you listen to the Spirit of God that keeps you from becoming hard and cold because of the way people treat you. I hope you are always able to do that.

It hit me really hard how blessed I am to be surrounded by people who love me and are not always hurting me. It occurred to me that most of my life was lived thinking being treated like that was normal and now, it is so abnormal that it puts me in a state of shock when it happens. Jesus opened my eyes so I could see all the warning signs of the people I shouldn't be intimately involved with, and only he gave me the strength and wisdom to stay out of those relationships and to keep necessary boundaries when I had no choice but to be in those relationships. My life is so much better for it.

There are no easy answers. People suck. God is good and only he can make us into the men and women we were meant to be. Unfortunately, it's not usually an instant fix. We still struggle along, being slowly changed by relying on and being loved by him in spite of ourselves. As we do, we learn about grace and mercy and are more able to extend it to others because it has been given to us. The world is still a hard, cold place, but we learn to live in it with an unshakeable joy and peace in our hearts. That is the blessing… more than finances, relationships, etc… that is the blessing that really matters.