Sunday, August 22, 2010

Why Do I Even Bother?

OK so once again I am resorting to this blog as a tool to rant sort out my thoughts. Knowing that read if you wish. If you do read this through I would really appreciate any thoughts, encouragement and ideas. I guess I deserve a little “What were you thinking!?” too so if that is how you feel let that fly too. Gently.

So here is the thing. Without going into specifics, so forgive the vagueness, someone in my family who I loved and trusted hurt an important member of my family who I love dearly. There were some extenuating circumstances that added to the layers of the issue but I would rather not go too far into those. Now at this point you might be wondering “Why are you bringing this up at all?” The answer is simply… I don’t know.

Anyway, as a result of the 1st person’s betrayal and behavior I became angry. Not just mad but like the Incredible Hulk, shirt tearing, irrational, Red Ross angry. I prayed and ask many others to pray for me too because I know the level of anger and hatred I was feeling was not right. The prayers helped but still any time I would hear about or think about this person I would loose control again and felt like I was starting all over. In one of these bad moments I rashly decided to delete this person from my Facebook list without alerting them. At the time in my anger I was thinking “To heck with them,” but now I can see how immature and hurtful I was being.

This has been months now and now the dearly loved family member and the other one are reconciling. Much has been forgiven between them and now I am put in the uncomfortable position of having that person back in my life and I am not too pleased about that. Still there is nothing I can or even should do about it. I have to support those who I love, even if I think they are putting themselves in a situation where they could be harmed again. I think it is always easier to forgive someone who hurts you directly than to forgive someone who hurts those you love. In this case this person did both and while I can forgive the offense to me, I can’t seem to completely move past the rest of it.

I have been praying a LOT for God to help me with this. The sharp edges of my anger have become smoother and the pain in my heart is duller. There is still anger and pain and mistrust there but with God’s help I know I can let that go completely.

Today I attempted to take the first steps in this. I took a somewhat bold move and wrote this person an email. Now the email was the wimpy part – the bold part was that I focused the email on asking for forgiveness from this person. I asked for forgiveness for my immaturity, for not being the friend and family member I know they needed, forgiveness even for the stupid Facebook thing. I remember a speaker at a Weekend To Remember talking about how empowering and freeing it can be to ask for forgiveness even if you were wronged too. It is not my place to point out another’s faults. I can only take care of my own. I am a sinner and I asked someone to forgive me.

Sadly I am also a sinner who is not completely in control of her emotions and I said some things that while honest and true, came across pretty harsh. It was not the right time or the right way and it totally negated all the potential good the rest of the email could have done. I do not regret what I said but rather the how and when. Ugh. It was stupid and prideful and I have no excuse.

I got back a pretty snippy reply and I tried to continue with the communication to clear things up. Sadly this person just continued to get more upset and basically told me I we never had nor will we ever have a relationship. Ouch. That stings. A lot. And not just to my pride. Although I am feeling pretty indignant too. Hey, just being honest.

So now I am torn. On one hand I want to go back again and again until they hear what I was trying to say and agree with me see things from my side. On another hand I want to say “Well forget you and the horse you rode in on. I was fine without you before and I will be fine without you now.” However being they are family, I know that is not really rational. It still feels good to say it out loud. And then on another hand (yeah I know it’s 3 hands. Just go with it.) I sort a wish I would have not even messed with the email and everything could go back to its dysfunctional normal.

What can I say? I am flawed. I like to be right. I am prideful and a sinner. Thank you Jesus I am saved because I surely can’t do this on my own! And I seem to have a need to prove that last point over and over again.

2 comments:

petiteblogger said...

Oh, I'm so sorry, my friend. What a hard position to be in. I really don't have any advice but I want you to know that I will pray for you & the other person and I am here if you ever need to talk things out loud with someone else...

Gelatt Family Life said...

I came across your blog today. We are on staff with FamilyLife, and wanted to encourage you by saying that you were right to ask for forgiveness. Confession is the doorway to growth and change in any relationship. I remember an instance years ago in my life where some things I said had deeply hurt a family member, and our relationship was nonexistent for years after that. It was not until I took the initiative to seek forgiveness that things began to change. Now, our relationship is not as close as it used to be, but the repairs are being made, slowly, but change is still happening. So, I encourage you to continue to ask God to increase your love toward them, and in time, your perspective will change as you will begin to see them as God does. Hope that helps.