Showing posts with label repeat offenders. Show all posts
Showing posts with label repeat offenders. Show all posts

The Repeat Offender ... Part 2


Thank you to everyone who commented on my last entry, the Repeat Offender. I found it interesting to read how other people are struggling with the same issue. It amazes me that if I am fighting this and I have such deep security and passion for the Lord, what is it like for all those people out there who don't have Him, yet? Clearly the intense desire to be loved, like only the Father can love, and yet, not know it can be fulfilled by Him is what is driving people to do such horrible things like the guy at Virginia Tech.

This is why we as "Christians" should dig deeper and fight even harder to be cleaned up ourselves. We need to be 100% sure that our Daddy loves us and no matter what hurt comes our way, we need to know it can be forgiven with His strength. Think what it will be like when we have reached this solid knowledge and walk in it. Think how we will be able to love others in a deeper and more meaningful way.

For the last 8 months or so, the Lord has been teaching me about giving with out any expectations. At first it was about stuff and money. Am I willing to give up something or some dollars without any expectation of receiving back from Him? Please know that I am fully aware that God blesses us when we give. But there is a new level out there. It's about literally adjusting your brain, confidently, to just doing what God tells you to do without any thoughts in the back of your mind that He is going to give you something down the line.

I am not sure I am making myself clear. This may be one of those thought processes best explained in person.

I guess where I am trying to go with this, is that the Lord showed me yesterday that I need to take my "no expectations" thought process to a new level. I need to apply it to loving my repeat offenders, with no strings attached.

What I have realized is that I hold back on completely loving my repeat offenders, because well, I am hurt. So, I protect myself and hold onto my hurts as my shield. Every once in awhile I put that shield down and think, "I love them...here I go. I am going to love them, right now." And while I am loving them, in the back of my mind, I am expecting them to love me the way I am loving them.

Am I making any sense here?

I've been loving my repeat offenders with the expectation that someday they are going to love me the way I try to love them. Which has set me up to get hurt again and again and again.

Lesson #2 with the repeat offender - love them purely with no expectations of anything in return. Just love them.

I think by doing this, it takes the pressure off and puts the desires of being loved right back into the hands of the One and Only Lover.

Well, I get what I am trying to say here. Sorry if it doesn't make a bunch of sense. I just know that yesterday I had a deeper revelation. It's time to put down my sword and my shield. Its time to throw away my lists of hurts. It's time to love with no expectations.

This time the only expectation I have, is that the One I long for, the One I desire with all my heart, the only One who can truly love me, IS going to meet me.

Posted in: on Friday, April 20, 2007 at at 7:44 PM 1 comments  

Repeat Offender


For some years now I have been fighting with what I would like to call, The Repeat Offender. This is someone that repeatedly offends and hurts me, many times without even knowing it.

For many reasons, I am not going to go into details. But lets just say this, no matter how hard I try, I will never be able to walk away from such offenders.

I have worked through levels of forgiveness. Beginning with deep emotional forgiveness. Then transitioning into renewing my mind that every time I would deal with a hurt, I would even say, I forgive, I forgive....

And while much work has been done and accomplished I am no where near the point of total forgiveness.

This is why I know.... Everytime a new hurt comes along, it affects me deeply. In my head, I wrestle with, "they always do this..." or "this isn't new, they just don't care about me" or, this one is even uglier, "I should have seen this one coming..."

I have begged the Lord to be at a place of freedom in this, to be at a point of total forgiveness. And yet, here I stand still hurt and tired.

In one of my "discussions" with the Lord recently, I was reminded of how it says in 1 Corinthians 13, the Love chapter, about how "love keeps no record of wrongdoings" as well as "it always hopes, always perseveres."

Then I felt like the Lord gave me a vision of a plate full of mash potatoes. Another scoop of the white creamy stuff was added and of course the plate felt heavier. Then He showed me a clean plate. A scoop of potatoes was added to it and the the plate was not rocked. It was not heavy and it did not feel overwhelmed.

Even as I write this I am reminded that white, the color of mashed potatoes, means purity.

For me it is time to look my "Repeat Offenders" in the eye and forgive the lists of hurts, past and present. I need to have my heart and mind renewed even further so that I can walk in hope and perseverance in my relationship with them.

Posted in: on Thursday, April 19, 2007 at at 2:42 PM 7 comments  

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