Kirkby Christian Fellowship
Date: March 29, 2007 06:47PM
Hi there,
BBC; is your site a ‘slag KCF off’ website?! (I’m kidding!)
Firefly; I think you have said a lot of very important things in your last couple of posts. I can’t speak for everyone, but I struggle to forgive. It is such an important thing to wrestle with, and I think some days I win and some days I don’t. Someone once painted me a very graphic description of unforgiveness; saying that it is like trying to hurt someone by drinking the poison yourself. It eats away inside you and doesn’t even touch the person it’s aimed at.
Your last post also made me think; would you agree with the statement that hurting people hurt people? Hearts harden, when we are hurt it is harder to let people in and trust again. We keep people at a distance. I know from my own experience, I can much easier justify dismissing someone, not spending time with them, or even lashing out at them (sometimes consciously, sometimes not) if I feel there is a risk of me being hurt.
I think someone mentioned earlier in the thread about being sensitive to control in other churches they have visited. I think that is something I have struggled with and a great example. I visited a church, just recently where the preacher said our relationship would grow with God if we sign a commitment to his church. It was only the second time I had visited his church, and from what I could see it was fantastic. But this one thing made me reject it outright. Maybe because of the hurts in my past I chose to do that, because of the suspicion and the control issues I have? Maybe next week the guy will get up and say he was wrong, maybe by my questioning it he will decide it is wrong, maybe I am wrong and overreacted…
I guess what I’m trying to say is if you do feel hurt by someone, that they have rejected or lashed out (and I’m not trying to justify abuse here, or any other hurtful action… at the end of the day we still have a choice in how we choose to act) maybe there is a reason behind that?
One thing I do know is that we do lots of things subconsciously, things that only the outside world, our friends and family see. Until we can face up to the challenge of that with humility and grace, we can never grow and move on.
Thank you for making me think firefly, and thank you all for being so open and willing to talk about things without rejecting.
PB