Love as He loves...

I have recently been hurt by someone.  It feels deep.  It is personal. And I really wanted to just hold onto it.  Sure, I wasn't outwardly acting on it.  It seemed simple enough.  I don't see these people often, so I could just feel slighted, angry and hurt and surely it was a small thing.

Or so I thought.

Prompting after prompting brings it to my rememberance..."you haven't forgiven them, Mary."  "I know, Father, but surely I am okay.  It is small.  I can just go on and no one will be affected by it."

And then, I tried to give it up.  I tried to forgive.  I tried to think kindly of them. I tried to even start thinking kindly of them.

Apparently, it is not as small as I thought.

This morning, as I lay awake in bed, my mind started wandering again down these familiar, bitter paths.     A good friend advised me to stop my mind immediately from going down those unhealthy paths by dropping to my knees (or folding my arms in bed) and offering a plea to heaven that God will help my mind find a healthy path to follow.  This morning, I did just that, but still felt the after-effects of bitterness. I needed a little more help (okay, a lot!) and knew I needed to find God's answer, not just sit and wait for it.

I opened up the most recent conference issue to the talk "Approaching the Throne of God with Confidence", in which Klebingat says:

What thoughts come to mind if you had a personal interview with your Savior one minute from now? Would sins, regrets, and shortcomings dominate your self-image, or would you simply experience joyful anticipation?

The thought, "you need to forgive" immediately presented itself to my mind.   I know from Doctrine and Covenants 64:9-10 that God will forgive whom he will forgive but of us it is required to forgive all men (there is no exception) and if we do not, in us lies the greater sin.

Now, that is pretty heavy doctrine. There are a fair number of pretty awful sins that people can commit against us, so to say that in us lies the greater sin if we do not forgive even these horrible sins is significant.  

Apparently, that is not what God wants me to do.  Over the past month, every time I read or thought or heard about "our gift to the Savior" in my mind would run the now-familiar refrain I mentioned earlier, "you need to forgive."  It doesn't matter how justified I feel or how difficult it has been, this is what God wants me to do.  So I have tried.  I have tried praying and asking Him to redirect my thoughts. I have felt my heart gradually softening but whenever I think of these people, I am still overwhelmed with disappointment and bitterness.  I feel like Corrie Ten Boom, from "The Hiding Place" who cannot seem to raise her arm to shake the hand of the SS Officer in front of her, the officer who claims Christ's forgiveness after the cruel things he did to Corrie's dear sister Betsy.  I know the "offense" against me pales in comparison to Corrie's, so why is it so hard to "raise my arm" to extend forgiveness? I have felt like I have been blindly groping about in the dark for an answer these past few weeks.

Well, I got my answer, but it was a hard one.

As I read the talk by Klebingat, I pled once again, "How can I forgive?  Please help me move on!  I can't do this on my own!"  My answer was, "The people who hurt you do not love you as you love them.  They are not guilty of betraying a love toward you that they do not feel."

That was it! That was why I hurt!  In my mind, I had been telling myself, "How could they act like this?!  I would never do this to them!" and in my mind had assumed that they felt that love for me.  However, through the lens of the Spirit, my mind opened and I realized that they had never shown or expressed anything to indicate that love.  Sure, they enjoyed being with me when we were together, but the kind of love that reaches out, sacrifices for and supports one another has never been there.  That love is something that I have assumed they have felt for me and equally assumed that they have willingly neglected over the years, "hurting me" every time they "betrayed" that love.

I wept. And yet, I felt strangely at peace.

As my emotions slowed and calmed, I thought, "What does this mean? What does this mean for our relationship?"  The scripture came to mind, "Love one another as I have loved you."

It hit me. The commandment or even expectation has never been for a follower of Christ to only love those who love us.  I have been transferring false feelings and expectations on others for years, I realize, expecting them to love me as I love them.   Heavenly Father knows best.  He wants us to love as He loves, without expectation of reward, compensation or even reciprocation.

I feel that this is the initial step of a personal emotional journey of introspection.  I know I don't fully understand the implications of this epiphany and feel I have some serious personal changes to make. I feel that perhaps these that have "offended me" and others in similar situations of my life are loving me in their own way and with their own capacity to love.  I feel perhaps that I have idealized what love should be and subsequently held everyone I have loved up to that ideal, assuming that when they fall short of it, it is because they simply do not love me enough...hurting me probably unknowingly and unintentionally.  I think I have a road of learning ahead of me--perhaps even the truth that I am not loving them as I think I have been!--, but for now, I will focus on this truth: "We are asked to love others as Christ loves, not as others love us."  Our Savior, who loved us so much He gave His life for us...Our Savior who loves us with true charity, that feeling that suffers long, envieth not, seeketh not its own, endureth all things.

While this path does not appear to be the easy one, I think I will take its prospects over the path of bitterness and disappointment I have chosen to walk all these years.