Yesterday I wrote about how when someone feels bad about themselves, it turns into a situation where they try to control or at least they try to make it seem like they have power and control. I went through it myself. I did some really horrible things. I hate to admit it, but the worse things I did were to myself, and I am thankful for that. It is difficult to forgive myself, but I think it would be far worse to try to seek the forgiveness of others.
Today, now that I have turned the mirror on myself, I want to look at it the other way. There’s been times in my life when people tried to control me. The bullies at school were pretty bad. Some of the guys I dated weren’t very good either. And I guess the worst one was my mom. I’ve tried to find forgiveness in my heart for all these different incidents and epidsodes in my life, but I always had this question of: Why me? That question was running in the back of my head all the time. I didn’t think I acted like a victim or did anything in particular to bring it upon myself. Then, I realized that it was a matter of pride. I thought that I played some major role in these other people’s lives because I played a major role in my life, but I don’t. They really don’t care much about me at all.
It sort of makes it easier. My entire life I kept wondering what was wrong with me for someone to want to hurt me so much? And now, I am finally realizing that it could have been anyone. It wasn’t about who I was. I just happened to be in that place in the universe at the right time for that person to direct their evil at me.
Even with my mother, it isn’t so much that she hates me as she hates that she can’t control me. The secret to dealing with it is realizing that it really doesn’t matter what anyone thinks; people really don’t care that much about me. What matters is the love God gives me and seeing that love in other people no matter how they treat me. It takes a huge amount of faith to look at the person who has hurt you and believe that there’s love inside of them, but that’s what God asks us to do. That’s the miracle of faith and forgiveness.
My faith saved me. May God’s peace reside in all of our hearts.
