There are a few people who lead me to be the mental shipwreck I am, those people I can never have good feelings for, most I can do is just move on. Honestly if I saw them being hit by a car I would do nothing. After the stuff I had to go through even my therapist said the best thing I can do in this case is just move on.
OH yeah,
those kind of people. Yeah, sometimes I just have to start with the “they know not what they do” model and work from there.
Seriously though some people have messed me up pretty badly, so it seemed. Ultimately now that I’m better I can look back and see how meeting the challenge of having to, shall I say, “breathe the same air as they do” and living through it has helped – kind of like the old saying “what doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.” Clinging to Rom 8:28 somehow figuring it would eventually work out, but that didn’t make it any easier at the time.
My own shrink made me quit all parish leadership committees because the people on those committees and their hypocrisy as I perceived it was driving me nuts. Luckily under a difference pastor now, I was treated as important rather than a leper the last pastor had to put up with, and that was greatly helpful in my getting better. Strange thing is that I wouldn’t have realized how great my pastor is – if I hadn’t the experience of the previous one.
A couple strategies I used for a couple of them was to imagine them before God, trying to explain to God why they didn’t listen to me, or treated me a certain way, or whatever. “Why did you not listen to so-and-so when (s)he kept telling you the Truth?” I imagined as they stumbled trying to give God some silly excuses – stripped of the worldly authority or the “hat they wear” to the point where they have to explain it to someone they can’t lie to and get away with it just because they can get away with it. And strangely, I actually started feeling sorry for them as I imagined them squirming before their questions.
I felt how sorry it must be, to be them, and having to explain to God why they acted the way they did. It didn’t make what they were doing seem any better, but it did give me a chance to imagine them in a situation where I can actually feel some pity for them, and “regret their sins on their behalf” if you know what I mean. Eventually I’m trying to get to where I just feel pity for them in the first place because I honestly believe they are really not very happy at all. They make look good or have money or influence or whatever, but they just seem so hollow like you could blow across them and hear them make sounds like a didgeridoo or something.
At one point there were certain coworkers who were benefiting from things they shouldn’t be – essentially stealing IMO but nothing I could do to prove or do anything without empowering the wrong people – and that was before I read the Bible hardly at all, but I did find some comfort in this, especially the part I bolded:
Prov 4
10 Hear, my son, and receive my words,
and the years of your life shall be many.
11 On the way of wisdom I direct you,
I lead you on straight paths.
12 When you walk, your step will not be impeded,
and should you run, you will not stumble.
13 Hold fast to instruction, never let it go;
keep it, for it is your life.
**14 The path of the wicked do not enter,
nor walk in the way of the evil;
15 Shun it, do not cross it,
turn aside from it, pass on.**
16 For they cannot rest unless they have done evil;
if they do not trip anyone they lose sleep.
17 For they eat the bread of wickedness
and drink the wine of violence.
18 But the path of the just is like shining light,
that grows in brilliance till perfect day.
19 The way of the wicked is like darkness;
they do not know on what they stumble.
MS
