Love your enemies
I have a situation where I am being bullied. Its sad and silly but it is life. Yet today I’m going to write about loving my neighbour (no man is my enemy, it takes too much strength to hold a grudge and it also elevates a person to a level of importance that they don’t deserve.)
1. So first of all, the bully is a father. He has 2 adult daughters and a wife. People love him, to my knowledge he is one of 5 children. So he has 4 siblings that love him, with hopefully nephews and nieces to boot. My bully has friends. Following on from the family point. He I am sure has people who know him well and have seen his good side.
2. Next my bully is a diabetic. My dad suffered from the same condition. It’s a life long disease not to be messed with. It made him more susceptible to the pancreatic cancer that killed him (Diabetes is a condition when your pancreas either doesn’t work full stop, or doesn’t produce enough insulin to keep you safe)
3. My bully is an entrepreneur. If he is doing half the things he says he is then he is doing good work. Its too early to call weather or not he follows through with his word. I’ve only known him 3 months.
4. My bully has a good side. And I’ve seen it. When I first met him a red flag for me was that he told me that his mother had died less than 3 months ago (at time of writing 5) and that it didn’t bother him. Yet when he speaks of his daughters and some quality time he has spent with them recently, he shows his humanity. It was beautiful to see that even though he’s been ugly to me, he’s special to someone else.
5. My bully is a child of God and is inherently special to him. He has no need to prove his worth to me, nor I to him. By being on this planet, he deserves respect dignity and humanity. And I aim to treat him as such. Today is Sunday, if you spoke to me on Friday I’d have said “next time he goes low, I’m going to hell” However I have mellowed and I am not about fire and brimstone. I’m about preserving my own dignity and peace. Not robbing him of his own. No one wins in the race to the bottom.
There you have it. 5 nice things about my bully. He is human in my eyes. Flawed but human, same as the rest of us and I do not wish bad things on him. If you can’t list 5 good things about the people who have hurt you, work on yourself until you can.
Grace and Courage.
Annetta Mother Smith.