Someone said something to me today.
Someone I respect and admire said something that anyone would interpret as harsh. It was stinging and unexpected. It hurt. It was the exact thing that needed to be said.
My first reaction was to beat myself up - she's right, I'm scum, it's my fault things are the way they are. My second reaction was to be madder then heck - she's supposed to be on my side, she had no right, how dare she?!.
Neither are productive.
But both led to the reaction I'm sure she intended: I started thinking.
Sometimes a verbal spanking is necessary when someone is acting like a spoiled-rotten child. Sometimes the harsh truth is the only thing that will break down the walls of self-pity and shake some sense into someone who is walking a dangerous road.
In the past couple of weeks I've been behaving like an idiot - reckless, foolish, immature and downright sinful. I was on the verge of some profoundly stupid choices but the details really aren't important. I was badly hurt but those details aren't important either.
Someone saw I was on my way to self-destruct and she said something.
Thank God for people like that.
More on what was said later... right now I have some more thinking (praying) to do.
1 comment:
I'm sorry that you were hurt by her words, but I'm glad she said them. Sometimes it takes someone having the courage to jerk us back onto the right path when we can't do it ourselves. As the recipient of a harsh word or two, I'm here to say that the initial reaction was all Satan.
Once I thought it over, the advice I'd received was life changing. My sinful nature struggled against it, but in the end, my faith won out.
Praying for you...
Xandra
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