Happy Easter to All

"Sometimes people are so hurt by life that they have a hard time reaching out and loving other people."

I was asked to give my opinion on this statement by someone. I have to say that I totally disagree. Everyone has been hurt by life in some respect or another and God's grace is big enough for everyone.

A while ago I was hurt badly by someone close to me and felt like they had stuck a knife in my back. I have tried since to reach out to that person but the knife has to be taken care of to stop the pain and for true healing and true relationship to happen even though I have totally forgiven this person. So I will wait in hope for that day and I will continue to love that person. God doesn’t place people in our lives that are always sweet and agree with everything we say and yet He asks us to love everyone the way He loves us. The fact that we have people in our lives that refuse to remove the knife does not give us the right to not to love and it doesn’t prevent us. The knife gives us the pain of understanding and the advantage to say, “I know how you feel…”

The joy of Jesus is that He suffered the most knife wounds of anyone and we are all the ones who hold the knives by the sins we commit AND this has enabled Him to extend His love toward us in a way that cannot be duplicated. He is waiting for us to remove the knife. The only way to have a relationship with Him is to say, “I am sorry for all that I have done wrong in my life. Thank you for taking the punishment for all those wrongs by the extremely painful death on the cross and I accept your death as punishment for my own sins.” Taking responsibility for our own actions, admitting our own knives, and genuinely taking steps to try to not inflict the knives (and apologizing again when we do) - that is when we are building true relationships with others.

And so my response to this statement is, “Sometimes people are so hurt by life that they find comfort and healing through Jesus and by reaching out and loving the people God has placed in their lives.”