More food for thought.......

I read the devotional for today and found myself thinking "this is me.....this is exactly me" and then it started to bother me. It's funny, especially with devotionals that are sent to us daily because sometimes we actually read them and then sometimes we don't, we pretend to pay attention and read it but we are really just skimming. I'm glad I read today's though, because sometimes for me it helps to know that I'm not the only one who has issues with relationships.

I have always been kind of loner, I've blogged about this before. But I find myself especially when it comes to other women in my life holding back and keeping myself guarded. I can't really put my finger on it except that like this devotional says I've gotten burned by one to many people at a young age and just decided that instead of allowing others to get to me I put a guard up and say "Not me, you can't hurt my feelings because you will never really know how I feel, I'll never share that" and just like today's devotional said we loose our ability to grow from true fellowship with other Christian women therefore hinder our growth spiritually.

I'm not great at apologizing, never have been. I can talk through problems and explain how I feel but the actual "I'm sorry" isn't something that comes out so easy. Although I had a situation recently where my feelings were hurt deeply by people I care about and funny thing is, however awkward it might be to apologize that's all I wanted to hear. I wanted responsibility to be taken, to say "I'm sorry for hurting you, for disappointing you" and while I know people don't always do that (like me) I think it's mainly because people, me included, would rather go on pretending it didn't happen than say I'm sorry.

As I look onto other situations in my life I find that I have let situations like this one break me and loose my faith and trust in people. Instead of talking through the hurt with the ones that hurt us we often just ignore it and go about our business. I am learning through growth and experience that situations aren't often as horrible as they seem and simply talking about feelings is okay, even if we don't get the exact response we want. But I do think God places situations in our lives to grow and hopefully be open to change and lessons. I have learned this lesson recently........

Not all people are who you think they are, some are better than we expect and some worse. Living a life full of forgiveness for YOURSELF not from others is really the way to grow in Christ. I can't let others people's actions hurt me and hinder me to put up a guard or shield that tells others, "she is to hard to be close too" I have to allow Christ to work through the ones that hurt me and not me work through them. That will never work, I just have to remember that the one and only person in my life who is consistent, loving, and always willing to listen is God. And through his grace I learn forgiveness and the ability to love others even when it doesn't feel like they love me.