I was reading a post by one of my friends called Beyond Forgiveness. The simple message the post wanted to convey is "See everyone as good but occasionally doing bad things because they are weak or don't know better".
There were three nuggets I got out of the post:
"Like me, you are looking for happiness, meaning and significance."
"I will look at your weakness with compassion not accusation."
"You have hurt me only to protect yourself, I will not take anything personally."
I can say wholeheartedly that I agree with the first nugget. This is what each of us want! This is a motivation at our very core in life. We want to be happy. We want meaning. We want significance. With ourselves. With someone. With family. With friends. With our work. With everything our lives touch. We want to matter. Each of us. Not just you, but me too!
The second nugget I found profound because we each have weaknesses. If we were to have compassion towards others weaknesses, we would not be accusatory. When we don't have compassion, we are accusatory. so the question in my mind is, what holds us back at times from having compassion? Many times to try to understand something, I delve into understanding the word more to get a clear picture.
The definition of compassion is a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering. Synonyms would be commiseration, mercy, tenderness, heart, clemency. Antonyms would be mercilessness, indifference.
Wow! If I simply were to be caring, tender, "have a heart" as the term is, be different to you in your weakness there would be no feeling of accusation. You would not be condemned. You would not feel helpless. If we were to have compassion, we would help someone with their weakness, not be creating ill feelings and furthering the difficulty.
The third nugget, gripped me hard. You hurt me, simply because you want to protect yourself? How can protecting yourself, at the cost of hurting me, be good? The pain you are feeling inside is better by inflicting pain on me? What would cause someone to think that inflicting pain on someone else would alleviate their pain? In doing so, what you did only created a bigger chasm between you and me. Instead of being loving towards me when you felt like being mean? In the end you could have mended the relationship, but you felt it best to add hurt? If I could only see it this way! If I could only believe they weren't "trying to hurt me".
I will be honest, I don't and am not sure I can in some of these things I have experienced feel that way. Though I believe the statement holds some truth, I also know what I have experienced, and to think that someone who intentionally abused you as a child loves you is a hard concept to grasp. To think of those things that happen where people maliciously hurt you, knowingly with forethought, is a hard concept to grasp. It goes against every feeling in my body. It goes against every word that was said to me. It goes against every action displayed. Yes, I know now, years later, that my parents would be in prison if me and my siblings had felt we could have ever shared what was going on in our home during the time it was happening, however that is not what happened. I know this is why I have a huge flaw at taking everything personally, life was made to be "my fault". It's become part of my personality and something I have to work at not allowing to filter into my thoughts and heart. I know this nugget is going to take some work to be effective in my life, but I am determined to let it have its work in me!
Whether I see that they hurt me because they were protecting themselves or not, I need to not take it personally. I want to look at the hurt I have experienced in my life differently. I want to let it not get the best of me...simply because I want to be loving! I want to be compassionate! I want to give you happiness, meaning, and significance...just like I have in God!
I highly recommend you read the link above for yourself because there is more there then I can write in this post. Check it out and be blessed!
No comments:
Post a Comment