Instead of Wringing Their Necks

Photo Credit: Congerdesign via Pixabay

My gut was telling me but my head wasn’t quite sure. Finally something they said flipped the switch, and I knew what I had to do. I unfriended, blocked, and under my breath wished them well in the sham of a life they were living, bless their hearts.

I’m getting better at recognizing false friends, also known as manipulators, users, those with ulterior motives.

It hurts when someone you believed was your friend really wasn’t. And of course it drags up memories of other friendships that have been lost or didn’t work out, for whatever reason.

I’m not too bad about setting boundaries while in a friendship, it’s afterward that I need to work on--the rehashing, the what ifs, the wondering what I did wrong, the whole nine.

A large part of my purpose is to love the people God puts in front of me. Sometimes He isn’t the one who brings them, but I don’t usually know that until later.

And while the wounds begin to heal into scars I remind myself of two things:

1. I have no control over another person’s behavior, nor am I responsible for it.
2. Their behavior does not determine my life.

I remember hearing about a woman who had been left blind after an attack. Later she was asked if she resented the person who did this to her. “No,” she said. “He had one night of my life. He will never have another minute.”

I have decided that bad things, dicey situations, and awful people will come into my life, but the effects of their behavior will be momentary at best. No one gets to control my mind, heart, and future but God and me.

It’s not always easy to do, but I have a little thing that helps.

It’s called forgiveness. It frees me from their control.

Forgiveness is not saying that what they did is okay or that it didn’t hurt. It’s not a wall I put up to block future pain, or a force field that deflects it. It’s more of a sponge.

Forgiveness absorbs the pain, the betrayal, the questions. Then I take it to God and ask Him to rinse it with His love.

And when the pain is rinsed away and wrung out--sometimes quickly, sometimes over time--it makes room for healing, and freedom.

Which makes for a whole lot better future than continuing to “bless their hearts” under my breath. 

​#bethelove #forgiveness #fakefriends
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