Too Darn Hard to Love

I prefer loving people who are easy to love. I prefer hanging out with people who are emotionally healthy.  It is fun and easy, and sometimes we just want, no, NEED... easy. Since I have no intuition, I accidentally befriend the less than emotionally stable.  You know the type, the ex-felon who considers himself less than human, or the psycho girl who calls you 1,000x's to see if you are still friends!?!   Each time this happens, I go through a season of regret. I regret "accidentally" befriending so-and-so.  I regret my lack of intuition.  I also regret this nagging conviction that God has called us to love those who are so darn hard to love.

Despite my complaints and endless pity parties, God keeps sending these people my way.  Repeatedly I find myself surrounded by the walled-up & guarded, the emotionally on edge, the narcissist who demands your undivided attention at all times.  Like I said earlier, it is not because I am overly spiritual or see a vision, it is actually, typically the opposite, I am daft.  Before I realize it, my days are consumed. My more stable friends start avoiding me so they can, by extension, avoid my new friends. It hurts. Its a stab. I lose the emotionally stable and I'm left with the crazy, dysfunctional, baggage-ridden folks.

 It is in these moments where God shows me the whole story.  The toxic and bitter person that I wished I had avoided, is buckling under the weight of a broken heart and endless grief.  They have lost so much, and are petrified that you too will leave. The closed-off and on-edge person is guarding a secret that they can never tell.  It is the hidden shame of depression, rape, or abuse; the hidden strongholds of addiction and past sins. They dread the day you discover their secrets and deem them unworthy of your love:  too dirty, too broken and just too darn hard. 

God loves the hard to love. He knows their stories, He knows their secrets, and He, in His infinite wisdom, has deemed them worthy. He extends a powerful invitation for broken people to believe that someone can love them, despite how hard it is to love themselves.  It is the same invitation He has extended and continues to extend to each of us.  Jesus Christ came from heaven to enter our mess and save us.  He loved me when I hated him!  Yes, I know, Jesus is God, and as God, He has endless mercy and strength, that we do not possess. I am not asking you to save people, only the Lord can do that, but I am begging you to ask God to see as He sees, to see the broken, the marginalized, the bitter.

Of course we need boundaries and wisdom when loving hard people. We need outside support and guidance in how to love in a healthy way, but it is my prayer that God will give each of us strength to not give up on someone just because they seem too darn hard to love.


Comments

Popular Posts