I can’t deal with this anymore; honestly I think I am too nice. I love too much. I can’t take people. They just come to hurt and abuse you. I am so sick and tired of them. I am going to harden my heart and start treating people the way they treat me. You open yourself up to people and then you find out all they do is lie, gossip, and spread rumors about you. After all the lying and deception, they expect you to forgive them as if you were the problem.
Pretending as if they didn’t hurt you. I cannot stand these people. Such hypocrites and they call themselves Christians. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you? Please, they don’t know the meaning of such words. I can bet after I start treating them the way they treated me they are going to be upset. Well good riddance. I made the mistake of loving too much.
I am sure these words have hit home to somebody. These were my words for a period of time. I was just tired. Tired that people could be so cruel. Tired of seeing the same people who ten minutes ago told a lie on you, worship God as if they did nothing wrong. I mean seriously these were the people God was calling me to love? I was tired of love. Why should I be the one who pretended I wasn’t hurt? Why should my hurt be brushed aside and I am told seventy times seven? These were my words.
What God taught me was that I didn’t know what love truly was. I learned that me giving love was not contingent upon me getting returns, that is why its free. I learned that I was expecting returns from people when I should be looking for God to pour into me. I learned that I wasn’t loving because of my commitment to them but my commitment to Him. When I say I serve Christ, I should do what He would do if He were here. I thought what does that look like? It looks like Him taking lashes across His back. It looks like Him wearing a crown of thorns on His head. It looks like Him receiving with open arms the spit on His skin and the words they threw at Him. It looks like Him being betrayed by someone in His circle, but still proceeding to die for him.
I learned that as Christians when we decide to discard love to pick up malice and hate, we discard our light. We put away God, because God is love. When we shut out love, we shut God out. When we restrict love, we restrict His work in us and through us. I learned that love gets you through and hate gets you stuck. To hate you have to constantly rehash and dwell on the hurt you felt in the moment. You have to water that seed of hurt in order for it to grow. While love enables you to forgive and to once again become vulnerable, which means you have to move forward.
I learned that love endures with patience and serenity, love is kind and thoughtful, and is not jealous or envious; love does not brag and is not proud or arrogant. It is not rude; it is not self-seeking, it is not provoked [nor overly sensitive and easily angered]; it does not take into account a wrong endured. It does not rejoice at injustice, but rejoices with the truth [when right and truth prevail]. Love bears all things [regardless of what comes], believes all things [looking for the best in each one], hopes all things [remaining steadfast during difficult times], endures all things [without weakening]. Love never fails [it never fades nor ends]. But as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for the gift of special knowledge, it will pass away (1 Corinthians 13:4-8 AMP).
I remember in Matthew 18: 21-35, the parable of the unforgiving debtor. This servant was in debt, owed millions of dollars to the king, but when he begged that the king be patient with him, and give him time to pay, the king was filled with compassion and granted his request. After leaving the king’s presence, he went to a fellow servant who owed him a few thousand dollars, and asked for his money. His fellow servant fell before him and begged for time to pay and he got him arrested until the debt to him could be paid in full. When I hear this parable I look at my own life. I look at how Jesus pardons my sins, at how he loves me in spite of my short comings and failures, and I realized that the least I could do is attempt to love as much as Jesus has loved me. I have to be willing to pardon my fellow servant. Love is unconditional, and despite the fact that we do get hurt, we have to challenge ourselves; if Jesus can love us enough to die for us, then there is no mistake in loving too much.
-Ashley #followerofJesus
