I hated everyone yesterday. Everyone was my enemy. I felt like everything anyone did or said was offensive and that people were just horrible. And that didn’t just end with the things that people said to me yesterday, I dug up every offensive thing that others have said about me and hated them for that too. Today on the other hand, I love everyone in my life and I know everyone in my life loves me. Probably sounds a bit bipolar and my husband probably was worried about that yesterday too, lol. But I am a woman so there’s a check in the mood column. I’m also a woman who was abused. So for years my habit was to put myself in the victim category until one day (praise Jesus) I learned I’m not a victim but a child of God! However, it still doesn’t mean I don’t slip into that place every now and then. But I’ll bet there are people reading this that aren’t in either one of these categories that have also had days like this… cause momma said there would be!
After all this hate I projected on everyone, I analyzed in my normal fashion (which is actually over analyzation) and I realized something. This is where I clue you in…..
I’m a new mom…a step mom to be exact. I try really hard to be the domesticated mom and make these great meals and every night I’m like a chef in front of the judges on the TV show “Top Chef.” I watch the girls as they first see my meal for their expression. I watch every bite in hopes to see that I’m going to the “next round.” I want so badly for them to love me, to like my food, my clothes, my everything and for them to see me as a woman they want to be. They are both girls at the budding ages of 10 and 14 and for some reason I want to impress them like they are my 30 something peers! So as you can see it isn’t really about the food but more about being accepted. And on Tuesday my food was not.
My husband kept trying to compliment in the midst of complaint. As they spit out there lettuce to what was part of a “chicken fiesta taco salad from Pinterest”, my husband was telling me it was great. He made excuses for “kids and salads” and that it wasn’t my food but just kids being kids. However, I wasn’t in a place to accept that. I was feeling like I was having failure and embarrassment along with a side of rejection for dinner. My tears and emotions were just ready to come out but I remembered in that moment a sermon I heard once that “being a stable wife and mother was being strong like an oak tree, not fragile like an orchid that could break at any time”, so I pressed on. But then at the end of the dinner the girls said “I thought when you called it a taco salad that it was going to be just like a taco but with more lettuce” and just then, after all the sweet comments my husband made, they went down the drain with these two words, “me too.” I looked at him with wrath.
The girls went upstairs for showers and I thought to myself “I’m just going to tell him gently that when he said “me too” I felt like I lost my team mate.” So as we are both cleaning up I approached it calmly with “so, I gave you that look because you said “ME TOO!”, and that was apparently the point where my calmness ended and I decided to exaggerate his two words. He jumped to the defensive not realizing he even did anything to begin with and said “I didn’t say it like that!” as anyone would. This was the beginning of a very long night and day for me.
All the stages of bad emotions occurred Tuesday night. But as we decided to “never let the sun go down on our anger” we went to bed in a good place where we made up. But apparently it wasn’t over for me. I woke up yesterday buzzing with bad feelings from the night before and apparently unforgiveness was still in my heart and I just didn’t want to get over it. Neil went to work smiling and I just got madder. What was going on? Why couldn’t I forgive? Neil kept being loving in text and phone calls but I just kept bringing it back up. I finally got to a point in the day where I was sick of myself. I started to evaluate me. “What are you so mad at? This isn’t Godly. This isn’t how Jesus would handle this Jill. Why does hate have such a hold on you right now over a salad!!??!“ And then my spirit felt a nudge. I wasn’t mad at Neil. I wasn’t mad at the kids. I was mad at me. See the truth was, I did forgive Neil Tuesday night when we put it to bed. It was yesterday when I woke up with conviction from the Lord and guilt from Satan that I didn’t forgive myself. God came to give us grace and I just couldn’t accept it. He had already forgiven the kids for their behavior, Neil for his and me for mine right after it happened. But the unforgiveness that I had for myself made me hate the people that I love the most. Do you see the danger in that?
We watch the news and we see people killing people and hurting people they love every single day. The words “it starts with you” has never been truer. Do you realize that most of these people hurting others are doing it because they hate who they are inside? I’ve heard the words “hurt people, hurt people.” I experienced that yesterday. I experienced what unforgiveness can do to a marriage and a family if I didn’t realize that I am forgiven! “It is by grace you have been saved, through faith, this is not by any good deed you have done, but it is a gift from God.” Ephesians 2:8. I didn’t do anything good yesterday to deserve God’s grace or forgiveness, but he gave it to me the day I believed he died for my sins. I’m so grateful to know about his grace. I live my life to tell everyone about it. Yesterday I felt what it felt like to not know his grace for a moment. I felt the power it had over me to hurt the people I love the most. And I also know that if I don’t keep talking about his grace then I’m someone responsible for allowing the world to only get worse. Jesus said “perfect love casts out hate.” His love is perfect. He loves you, unconditionally. Like a mother loves a child, there’s nothing you’ve done or could ever do that he couldn’t forgive you for. He knows you, he made you and he knows you are good. You are already forgiven. Accept it.
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