For the last couple of days, I’ve been thinking about how we tend to overcomplicate our lives greatly.
We mistrust the people in our lives, and we second guess their motives. We are highly suspicious of others’ words and actions. We also believe everyone has an agenda, a terrible trick up their sleeves. We replay their words and stories over and over in our heads, analyzing what they really meant when they said certain things.
It causes an unnecessary aura of fear, anxiety, and stress. Oftentimes, it’s something that could’ve been avoided altogether.
I’ve also been thinking about how pure love is. When we choose to look at others through the lenses of love and kindness, and when we choose to respond in love and kindness, life becomes ten times lighter. You see everything so much clearer, and you don’t carry that heaviness everywhere you go.
A conversation with someone this week brought certain things to a different light. I shared with her how painful it is to watch others respond in fear towards the choices I made out of love for them. Instead of embracing the healthy boundaries I had laid down, they responded with crushing fear.
‘I thought everyone lived their lives from a place of love,’ I told her. ‘Because that’s the way I’ve been living mine.’
She responded with the following statement, ‘Most of the time, it’s unresolved childhood issues that cause people to act that way. No matter how much love you give them, they will always react out of fear. It’s actually never about you, it never was.’
‘I thought everyone was like me,’ I told her.
‘It’s a rude awakening, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘You’re naïve, like me.’
Indeed, it is a rude awakening. I can understand that if I do things to others with a heart of fear and control, that they will react in fear and rebellion. But when something is done from a place of love and kindness, you expect that love and kindness will be given in return. Yet, because of unresolved issues in their lives – not yours – they choose to react in the complete opposite way.
This conversation concluded with her praying for me. In her prayer, she said, ‘Lord, help Vicki to keep her heart soft and to always respond out of kindness and love towards others. Help her that her heart of purity will not change, despite what others may do or say.’
*
*
You live your life like a tornado
Destruction follows everywhere you go
And you have no plans to stop or slow
I will not let this bitter root grow in me
I will not let you leave that legacy
But it gets so hard when pain is all I see
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Loving a person just the way they are, it’s no small thing
It takes some time to see things through
Sometimes things change, sometimes we’re waiting
We need grace either way
Hold on to me and I’ll hold on to you
Let’s find out the beauty of seeing things through
There’s a lot of pain in reaching out and trying
It’s a vulnerable place to be
Love and pride can’t occupy the same spaces, baby
Only one makes you free
