Beauty for Ashes...

If you are breathing then you have been hurt a few times both intentionally and unintentionally by those closest to you and sometimes even by acquaintances or complete strangers because offenses will come…

Deliberate and cruel or random and accidental, somewhere somehow at some point in your life’s journey you will encounter hurts that produce pain and sometimes life altering pain. The pain that seems to sting the most and springs fastest to bitterness and unforgiveness is that which comes from people in our inner circles (family both immediate and extended as well as friends).  The issue I have been struggling with which has contributed to my cynical perspective of people is how to overcome when those closest to you offend you.

Offences will come

#HomeTruth No. 1 -- First things first, we need to agree and internalise the simple fact that ‘offences WILL come’ and that’s just the way the cookie crumbles!

Once we have settled this in our hearts then we should have far less surprises as the offences come and we should be better able to withstand the blows and recover quickly, right? Well in theory yes but in practice there are way too many variables to contend with. Take a moment and look back on the last five months of just this  year alone. Think of the fresh violations you have experienced at the hands of loved ones; people who should care for you and therefore know better yet you are able to catalogue all the hurts you have endured  from them this year. Now look further back; five years, ten years, twenty years and so on… There are some offenders in your life that have a track record of hurting you, perhaps a few who you decided to cut off long ago... Others that make you feel like you are sleeping with the enemy (Oh Yes I went there!)... Bottom line, we all have "offences baggage".

So, after that moment of introspection, are we now agreed that offences will indeed come? Sometimes thick and fast, other times occasionally and almost always from the usual suspects with a sprinkling of new faces as you forge new relationships.

Once we embrace this fundamental truth that people are flawed and inherently selfish and therefore what is definite so long as we are breathing is that they will offend us and we in turn will offend someone else (Oh yes! We are not immune, we do it too!)

Unforgiveness begets suffering

As you may have deduced from where this is going I have an offender that I have been struggling to forgive mainly because the hurt and abuse I have suffered at their had has festered, and just I think I have reached a place of forgiveness, the offender strikes again...almost always small petty things which have built up and over time morphed. In the number of years I have known them, the list of offences have built up into a full 'wrap sheet' of unresolved offences which have now escalated to a full-on raging fire that has literally burned its way through my joy and started to set other relationships on fire around me.

The thing about unresolved offences is that they behave like cancer particularly when the offender is unrepentant. They slowly spread until you are consumed with bitterness and unforgiveness that affect every area of your life. You develop a cataract like state whereby everything the offender does you see as an offence and then you start to see everyone with the same lens of hurt and betrayal. This state affects you, breaks, you, damages your relationships, stunts your growth, clouds your vision and robs you of your joy…if you let it.

I was offended by someone very close to my husband and I, someone he introduced to me. This person whom I tried to befriend and embrace turned on me and rejected me almost from the start and one offence lead to another until I got to a place where I could not hear this person’s name without flinching as if I had been slapped…They stirred a barrel of mixed emotions whenever we engaged and often the result of engagement was the pouring out of poisonous venom all over me through words…

Words have life, they cut deeper than a double-edged sword…death and life are in the power of the tongue. My offender uses words to kill my joy and with it goes all the love that I had tried to grow for them. I must admit that in the end after years of struggle, I let anger take over and I drew a line in the sand and cut that person off (not my finest hour). What I had not bargained for was that in the process I became a prisoner to my anger, bitterness and unforgiveness. Whilst I had determined not to have anything to do with this person, they were still connected to me through people in my life who I love which enabled the offender to continue to feed the fire of unforgiveness that was burning within me... 

#HomeTruth No. 2 -- Unforgiveness leads to suffering…Your suffering! God gives you over to suffering when you are unforgiving, yes you read right! He lets you suffer at the hands of your own unforgiveness… I get it too because if after the cross we can be unforgiving then we deserve the consequences that come with it.

The Ashes…

I lost so much joy and time in my determination to live in a state of hurt until my offender saw what pain they had caused and apologised. I was angry with my husband and others who failed to show my offender how they had and continued to hurt me. I felt exposed and unprotected and let down by my loved ones which caused even more pain...This pain brought with  it a very negative thought life, the result is that bitterness took root in my heart and you know bitterness is not selective therefore everyone around me experienced the consequences of it. 

At breaking point I realised that I had entered into a state of depression... No longer was I the optimistic and happy, fun-loving girl my husband had married…I lost myself...

The interesting thing about bitterness and unforgiveness is that it doesn’t imprison your offender, nope! Your offender more often than not is able to spew venom on you then go on happily with their life, leaving you imprisoned in your bitterness all by yourself, laying in the ashes of your life, hopeless, broken and alone…But God.

Embracing the Beauty…

A little while ago I decided that I didn’t want to live in this prison anymore… I was trapped and didn’t know how to get out but I was exasperated at all the burning around me and the mound of ashes that my heart and life had become… So I did what I should have done from the beginning, I turned to God and confessed…I was directed to Isaiah 61:3 which says,

“…and provide for those who grieve in Zion—to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes,the oil of joy instead of mourning,and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair…”

I read this scripture and wept.

Even after the cross and the recognition of my own sinfulness and need for salvation I still managed to get snared by bitterness and caged by unforgiveness. God had made a plan to rescue me from the prison of bitterness and unforgiveness I had created for myself. Yes, you read right, I had created it. Don’t get me wrong my offender was wrong but they were not responsible for my response to the offences that came my way, I was. I could have chosen to let it go but I chose to hold on to the hurt…because I am human…but I ended up hurting myself and those I love in the process.

#HomeTruth No.3 --  I can either hold on to the ashes… my bitterness, my righteous indignation at being hurt or I could let it all go and instead receive a crown of beauty, oil of joy and garments of praise... But I couldn’t have both.

My choice to forgive my offender(s) is not about them at all, it’s all about me. Letting go means setting myself free and securing once more, my happiness, my joy, my peace of mind...

Love them where they are

Part of letting go is re-learning how to love those that hurt you, how to do good to 
those that persecute you – Sounds crazy right? But the bible says it for a reason, If my heart is focused on loving in the 1 Corinthians 13 kind of way, it will be way too busy to keep a record of wrong. It is that record that sparks the fire of bitterness that burns you right down to ashes. The only way to avoid that is to learn how to love your enemies and do good to those that hurt you.

My offender probably believes their actions are justified and they may never change… I have accepted that now which has lifted a weight off my previously very heavy heart.

The reality is that an offence is coming my way, possibly sooner than I even expect...So what do I do to protect my heart?

My Pastor once told me that I need to learn to ‘love people where they are’ – He said that the wisdom is in being able to realise that we cant change people, we can only change how we respond to them. The starting point is identifying how much to give and how far to go in every relationship, allowing experience of that person to modify your behaviour towards them as well as your expectations of the person – This is the best way to guard your heart… I have decided to practically apply this advice to my situation and I would encourage you to do the same.

#HomeTruth No. 4 -- Don’t leave your heart open to everyone and allow everything that happens to you and around you to affect it. Love people where they are and set clear boundaries to protect yourself from bitterness and unforgiveness setting in. 

When you stumble, and allow yourself to become bitter after an offence has burned you then imprisoned you again, (let’s face it we are human and forgiveness is a process); surrender your ashes to God and accept His Crown of Beauty…Allow His love to heal your heart and your mind and dust yourself off and try again...

…A day at a time…