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:
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 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thank you for reading, sharing, and commenting. If you’d like to receive these posts and updates in your inbox, please subscribe.
4 Comments
Sherry Fisher
4/28/2017 08:22:40 am
Awesome message
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They say you are the sum of the 5 closest people you surround yourself with in your life. I don't entire subscribe to that notion, but there is no denying the affects those closest to our "inside lane" can or may have on our individual paths. Sometimes we don't get to pick all 5 of them, metaphorically or even literally speaking, as they are family we cannot abandon, or friends who are more like acquaintances by proximity. Our work places, schools, small towns, or whatever other constrained situations we find ourselves in may cause that. We have to work around that. We have to define ourselves. Find our signal amidst the noise and when we encounter someone who amplifies our signal - like your friendship does for me, in fact, we need to make sure we integrate that circuit as much and as often as we can into our systems. Yes, I'm mixing all kinds of metaphors here, but sum it up with - cut the chaff, and keep the wheat!
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Ruth Braddock
4/28/2017 10:12:01 pm
High maintenance friends - the ones that require much and return little. We have probably all had several in our lives at one time or another. No one gets to control my mind, heart, and future but God and me." I think we could add time to this list God has more productive things to do with our time. Things that bring him Glory!!!
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Kay Hall
4/30/2017 06:11:37 am
Debbie, I love this essay/blogpost! It's a wonderful reminder of how to handle destructive, stray thoughts. My daughter-in-law uses this phrase to control the effects of her former abusive care-takers throughout her life: "I'm not giving them any more space in my mind."
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