Just Writing Out Loud

Martyrism runs in my family. I get it honestly. It's a part of my personality I fight minute by minute.

I really want to delete my post "Just Love in Return" because there are days...weeks...months that I'm not so cocky. One of my biggest hurts is allowing people's unintentional words or lack of words to hurt me---to the core. Deep into my heart.

I struggled in my past church about a certain person who would walk down the hallways of church, pass me and not even acknowledge me. They'd walk by me and not say hi--even with me looking right at them and saying Hi....even...even if it were just us in the hallway. They knew me...they knew me well. We had conversations before...yet they would brush right past me...and I'd start dealing with my own struggles, my own 'demons' if you will.

I finally sat down with the minister I was working for at that time and talked to him about my struggles. Out of a grown woman's mouth I'm sure it sounded more like "so and so won't play with me." Thankfully he didn't laugh, roll his eyes or excuse himself from the room. Me being a fairly new Christian and learning about things 'of the spirit', he took this time to teach instead of scold my lack of maturity.

He said something so profound that it changed my perspective of that person. He said "Ouida, everyone has a darkside--even you. We all have something in our personality that we don't want people to see. Just some of us see those hidden things a little more clearly."

He went on to remind me of the spiritual gifts test I had taken. Discernment and Faith were the two largest gifts I utilized in my Christian walk. He said, "You are gifted with discernment. God gave us this gift so we would know truth from untruth, real from unreal and evil even when it's shrouded in godly. It is your responsibility to know the truth."

I shrugged my shoulders and said "What does that have to do with this?" He said just because someone treats me with disregard, I need to know it's usually not evil--just ignorance. He told me that with my wonderful heritage of "martyrism" that my 'critical spirit' begins to take it all personally, and after I beat myself up for a while, I start beating them up in my mind, and finally come to the conclusion they are evil.

One of the worst things people with discernment can do is JUDGE everything as evil. The battle I fight and am fighting at this moment, is trying to keep my heart correct and see things--feel things--know things from God's perspective.

I just need to keep reminding myself that it's not about me...even though this post is.