Tag Archive | hurt

Author Confessions: The Dangerous Emotion of Resentment

Apr21
Reading Time: 4 minutes

Author Confessions: The Dangerous Emotion of Resentment

I start out writing these posts with really no idea where I’m going to go with them. Mostly it is me processing this and considering it, something many people rarely do, so I hope these are as beneficial to you as they are to me.

I’ll admit I’ve struggled with the dangerous emotion of resentment. That usually comes from unresolved conflict or perhaps someone I need to forgive (again) for wronging me at some point. Perhaps that person was even confronted about their trespass but were unrepentant. It’s easy to resent someone like that. Or perhaps I resent someone who snubbed me. There are are people I’ve served with in ministry over the years who will be cheerful and happy to my face in a fake way, but won’t accept a friend request on Facebook. Now granted, maybe there are not on there very much, but still, it says something. Or maybe they were at one time a friend on social media and unfriended me. I have no idea why. I don’t try to be political or divisive in my postings on there, or rarely advertise my writing or even this blog on my personal page.

So what do we do with these feelings of being snubbed, insulted or perhaps even injured in some way, shape, or form?

As with any emotion, we need to take it to God. I’ve had instances where I’ve been unable to seek out reconciliation and instead of wallowing in resentment I leave it in God’s hands. In my mind I have this imaginary stamp that I’ve placed on their forhead that says: UNSAFE. Those people do not deserve an intimate connection with me. Trust has been broken, and I can be polite and even friendly but refuse to go deeper than that. One individual called me after a year of little contact and she complained that we don’t talk anymore. She  forgot how she tore me to pieces when I confronted her on her treatment of me in various ministry groups we’ve been in (publicly demeaning me). I went away from that initial conversation crushed. Since that time I gave it to God. During that call, I gave her the information she requested without stating anything more about my life or even asking about hers. I just don’t care to have a relationship with her any more than I do with someone from a call center trying to sell me car insurance. I have detached any emotion toward her. I view her as unsafe but without any resentment. I wish her well, but don’t desire to be a part of her life, or have her in mine as she has not proven worthy of my trust.

I have resented the way people have treated someone I love. Evil stuff really. In this instance, resentment comes very close to hate if you consider it on a continuum. Or even anger. It can be a combination of all of the above. Or how about jealousy? We can resent people for being blessed with things we don’t have, even if they don’t flaunt those blessings.

Resentment can become dangerous when we hold on to it. It can fester and grow into some of those other emotions I mentioned. If we have a habit of holding on to that it can become pervasive where we resent a lot of people over things and treatment, real or imagined. As it grows it can impact our spiritual and emotional health as we harbor such an ugly poison within us. The dangerouse emotion of resentment is at it’s worst when we resent the God who oversees our lives and perhaps denies us our request in our timing or blesses someone else the way we want to be blessed. That’s serious one to pray about. His ways and timing are not ours. He is always at work and we need to trust that in His perfect love and plan, that He does have a reason and there is good coming out of even the darkest days.

Does resentment ever do us any good? Well, in some ways when we can identify that emotion, we can examine more closely the way we are experiencing it and deal with it. Emotions are involuntary but there are often thoughts behind them that influence them and their severity. What are the thoughts? Someone doesn’t like me and won’t friend me on Facebook. OK, that is their perogative. I’ve reached out to be friendly and it is not reciprocated. Why would I want a relationship with that person anyway? I can let it go, be friendly if I see them, fully aware that the cheerful greeting I get is phoney and move on with my life  grateful for the true friends who are a part of it. I don’t need people like that as part of my inner circle.

The dangerous part of the emotion of resentment is when we hold on to it and let it grow. Stop feeding it with negative thoughts. Instead bring them before God and then perhaps even another person to process and understand the why, so you can deal with it, and move past it, leaving resentment starving in the dust behind you as you move forward in your life. Who has time for that anyway, when there are so many other wonderful things to focus on the many wonderful things God has and is doing in our lives?

How have you dealt with the dangerous emotion of resentment? I’d love to hear of any tips you might have used.

 

Contaminated Love

Feb25
Reading Time: 2 minutes

Sometimes our wounds are more significant than we realize.

Let me explain. I’ve struggled with some spiritual inertia lately. Difficult chronic issues contribute, as well as some health stuff, but it dawned on me today that the real issue is that I have come to feel defeated in my walk with God.

But this is not from God.

It started with another person I looked up to and trusted. A person who repeatedly wounded me and I prayerfully confronted with much fear and trembling. A person who turned on me and lashed out in even more deeply painful ways.

It was not so much the fact that this happened but the fact that the things I had been devalued for by this person involved prayer.

Prayer. An intimate conversation with the Most High God.

And this individual left me feeling like a failure in this area.

*Sigh.*

So there’s a double whammy for me.

1)      I tried to confront in love because God asked me to – and came away feeling beaten and bruised at the core of my being. My attempts to get help to confront again were not successful and I gave up because too much time passed for it to seem meaningful. This made it hard for me to go back to God because didn’t it all start with Him anyway?

2)      I still feel inept.

Now this is all entirely ridiculous, isn’t it? I mean, who else should care about how well I communicate with God – except for – God!

And He knows my heart and my hurt and it was never His intention to open me up to such soul-searing pain as what I experienced at the words of this woman.

So I go back and try again – to sit at the feet of my Savior recognizing that it was not this individual, but Satan Himself using that person to derail my relationship with God.

Amazingly enough, God has continued to speak to me and lead me even when I’ve not been as faithful as I think I should be in coming to Him. Another dear friend has told me that she thinks I’m praying more than I realize. Pray without ceasing? In some ways I do that. Simple prayers from a simple servant heard by a gracious and abundant God.

And I’m grateful because He has never wasted any pain that I’ve endured from others who have sought to wound me. Ultimately He has taken what they meant for evil and used it for good.

So I will hold on and I will persevere because He is faithful and loving even if some people have not lived that out in the ways I expect. Chances are I’ve wounded a few on my path as well. I only hope and pray I can be humble when confronted and not hurt in return like I’ve been hurt.

How about you? What derails your relationship with God?

 

Unmet Needs

Aug9
Reading Time: 4 minutes

This post was written by Cheryl Cross: a friend, missionary, amazing mom and wife who always seems to smile and exude grace. I hope you are encouraged by her words like I was.

There have been many times when I have felt “in the pit,” not because of my own sin nor because of a lack of intimacy with God. Yet I’ve sat there, bearing the burdens of this world, wishing God would just simply make me feel better as I face the onslaught. God, though, sometimes wants me to sit there, recognizing that this world and the people in it often bring me pain. There is sorrow that God won’t erase even with his perfect peace and unending joy.  That’s when I look to His word and see this: Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad. Seriously, God?  When my earthly need of feeling loved and accepted and wanted and cherished is unmet, You can make my heart glad? Is it possible to have a glad heart and have grievous pain at the same time? I’m beginning to believe it. I’m not there yet; I don’t have it all pulled together. But when I think of those moments when the tears flow abundantly, I meet the Lord in a sweeter way than any other moment of earthly joy. That’s what He means. He designed us to have needs and wants that are met by our loved ones that He provides, but when those earthly needs are unmet, He sits with us in our sorrow.

This time, when the tears come, when the pain seems so overwhelming that it might break us, perhaps we can just sit and wait with God on the gladness of heart that only He can bring. Perhaps we can choose to press in to his tender arms and let the sorrow rain down around us. Lord, may I see You in the sorrow and not run away from You so that You may bring me gladness of heart.

Ecclesiastes 7

A good name is better than precious ointment, and the day of death than the day of birth.

It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting,

for this is the end of all mankind, and the living will lay it to heart.

Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad.

The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.

It is better for a man to hear the rebuke of the wise than to hear the song of fools.

For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fools; this also is vanity.

Surely oppression drives the wise into madness, and a bribe corrupts the heart.

Better is the end of a thing than its beginning, and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit.

Be not quick in your spirit to become angry, for anger lodges in the bosom of fools.

Say not, “Why were the former days better than these?” For it is not from wisdom that you ask this.

Wisdom is good with an inheritance, an advantage to those who see the sun.

For the protection of wisdom is like the protection of money, and the advantage of knowledge is that wisdom preserves the life of him who has it.

Consider the work of God: who can make straight what he has made crooked?

In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider: God has made the one as well as the other, so that man may not find out anything that will be after him.

In my vain life I have seen everything. There is a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man who prolongs his life in his evildoing. Be not overly righteous, and do not make yourself too wise. Why should you destroy yourself? Be not overly wicked, neither be a fool. Why should you die before your time? It is good that you should take hold of this, and from that withhold not your hand, for the one who fears God shall come out from both of them.

Wisdom gives strength to the wise man more than ten rulers who are in a city.

Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins.

Do not take to heart all the things that people say, lest you hear your servant cursing you. Your heart knows that many times you yourself have cursed others.

All this I have tested by wisdom. I said, “I will be wise,” but it was far from me. That which has been is far off, and deep, very deep; who can find it out?

I turned my heart to know and to search out and to seek wisdom and the scheme of things, and to know the wickedness of folly and the foolishness that is madness. And I find something more bitter than death: the woman whose heart is snares and nets, and whose hands are fetters. He who pleases God escapes her, but the sinner is taken by her. Behold, this is what I found, says the Preacher, while adding one thing to another to find the scheme of things— which my soul has sought repeatedly, but I have not found. One man among a thousand I found, but a woman among all these I have not found. See, this alone I found, that God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes.