When Feelings Are Hurt

Chocolate and libation is a temporary emotional pacifier.

Every so often I learn a new lesson.

More often I relearn a previous lesson somehow forgotten, now reminded to me again.

I recall a mentor teaching me that our walk is similar to the ocean's ebb and flow.

In trying to be perfect, our aim and effort has its moments of ebbing.

It isn't that we desire to fail, or purposely make mistakes (sin).

Instead, we realize we have in fact ebbed away.

The point is not to beat ourselves up when we realize we've ebbed away from the Way.

There is a balance.

Understanding grace (and being grateful).

Avoiding legalism.

Recognizing feelings of guilt as such and not letting those feelings overwhelm grace.

Not letting people's poor opinions cloud the Word of God.

Since there are more than two ways of understanding any such thing, sometimes the answer is not always a 'yes' or a 'no'.

Sometimes the answer is both 'yes and no'.

Sometimes, the answer is neither 'yes or no', but something neutral (neither good or bad).

My latest lesson is realizing that I try too hard to make and keep friends.

I also give up too easily in keeping friends.

I eventually come on very strong.

In due time, acquaintances come to find out who resides within me.

My heart's convictions eventually show themselves strongly.

So strongly that others are not accustomed to hearing my heart's content.

My 'strength' is that I don't hold back what is typically hidden inside others, both joy and pain, triumph and failure, glory and shame.

Although I've been taught to keep things simple and in the shallow end for as long as possible in building friendships, eventually it seems the contents of my heart overwhelm others.

When I've strayed from the path, I have tried to be simple... but it was acting and I was not being myself.

The world in between my ears is usually a journey of deep thought.

Not trying to boast, but rather lament that this manner is not always healthy or beneficial for others.

I know no other way to 'be'.

This has been my life's manner since I could remember.

My personal taste is to traverse the difficult subjects, discuss the controversial, clarify what is confused.

However, this is not usually what people in general like to discuss in public places.

The public places that do discuss such things usually have adherents already agreeing with one another.

There is more parroting than debate.

To challenge popular ideas is to be automatically wrong in their eyes, the challenge rarely explored or considered.

I'm sure the same could be said about me and how I live, what I believe, what I proclaim.

My problem is that when my sentiments are eventually revealed, when the simpleton remarks have ceased being mirrored from my side, what is revealed is usually rejected by most others.

Those who were initially enamored by certain things in me are later disgusted to find their initial hunch was correct; I am not like them.

When it is clear I am not going to become more like them and my heart desires them to become more like Christ, the disgust grows proportionally into open hostility.

Passive aggression results.

Gossip poisons the minds of others.

My mistake is making a further effort to embrace indifference.

My mistake is after I am rejected, I fail to quickly realize indifference cannot stand to be held, but let go.

This rejection causes me pain.

I also have feelings.

And like a child, I react sometimes like a child.

My problem is that I continue trying to be friends with the unfriendly.

Or I remove myself entirely, which causes pain to others who frequent places I ceased visiting.

My mistake is I tried being friends with those who detest what I am about.

My aim was not to ignore them, but to love them just the same.

In doing so, I am eventually hurt.

After rejection sets in, I relive a sequence I unfortunately already know... yet this lesson is a good reminder.

I am reminded that someOne was rejected in a similar way.

I am also reminded I attempted to make friends of those hostile to who lives in me.

I am reminded it is Him they reject, not so much 'me'.

Now those I approached as a friend, a possible next of kin, is now a sworn enemy.

Yet their enemy status is not my doing, nor my intention, but their choice and position of allegiance.

Once again the lesson is repeated that such an attempt causes my character to wane and I'm tempted to take on ill manners.

I am tempted to speak ill of them as they've done me.

This is why the teaching to have conversation salted sparingly speaks to keeping things light while in the light.

The profound is easily lost on those never called to explore all parts of their heart.

The hearts of some will never see the light of Day while on earth.

This is a harsh reality that I also have difficulty embracing, but a fact I need learning how to better deal with.

It is the manner I navigate rejection that will enable peace to continue after rejection.

His peace never leaves me; it is my navigation of emotions that causes me to question what I have done.

Surely the burden of those in Christ is light.

His light is no such burden when considering the consequences of those who reside in darkness.

Remember to have gratitude when feeling such a burden, for it is a joy when all things are considered.

Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when His glory is revealed. If you are insulted because of the Name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. If you suffer, it should not be as a murderer or thief or any other kind of criminal, or even as a meddler. However, if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that Name. For it is time for judgment to begin with God’s household; and if it begins with us, what will the outcome be for those who do not obey the gospel of God? 

- 1 Peter 4: 12-17