Last week I found myself up against a pretty defensive character who lost their temper with me. I honestly did not feel I had done anything to provoke the verbal attack and I was really upset by it. I wonder how you react when this happens and whether it is anything like my journey.

Firstly cried, I was upset and hurt and I cried, then I felt very angry, andI composed letters of complaint to this person's manager, or more accurately I have a draft email in my laptop which on reading it now,thank goodness it did not get sent. I briefly played with the idea of revenge via a facebook campaign but to my credit did not seriously consider this. I also was vaguely aware of a verse running around my head saying "love your enemies" but that was just not possible last week.

 

Then I went to church and heard 1 Corinthians 13, the beautiful verses about love in particular vs 5

"Love does not keep a record of wrongs"

 

Sometimes verse is aimed right at us and for me on Sunday that was it, I shouldn't be plotting, I shouldn't be thinking of revenge. I have been enjoying the bestseller "The girl with the dragon tattoo" and in anyone who gets in the way of the main character is dealt with at some point in some awful way. But that is not love, in many ways that's the easy option.

 

As soon as I started to absorb this,my anger lifted, the knot in my stomach eased and it became easy to let it go, to put myself in the other person's shoes and to forgive their actions. I am as you can see no saint, and I needed a helping hand with this one but I do know that letting it go feels so much better than storing it up. Loving my enemy? Not quite yet but a bit closer!