May 17, 2010: Hard to Love People
Posted on : May 18th, 2010 | By office | Category: Bread for the Journey
In the past few weeks we have looked at the Command to “love our neighbor” from different angles, but what about those people in our lives who are hard to love? Or what about those people we feel contempt towards? In one sense it is easier to love an anonymous enemy than it is to love those people we know who fill us with disgust. small business help homely.

May 18th, 2010 at 8:29 pm
And there you have it. I found what Bart found in not quite so dramatic situations. We became surrogate parents for a friend of our son’s when all other adults including his parents relegated him to a life in reform school. I found more broken people volunteering at a homeless shelter in IL. There are so many cases tugging at your heartstrings, but Bart noted many cannot be fixed.
But this is what we do. After all, what credit is there in loving the lovable? We are called on to love our enemies. Bart’s case wasn’t his enemy, but was certainly a challenge.
If you are following along, nodding politely, let’s move to the next level: Is Bart ready to love the rapist? Are you? Am I?
May 19th, 2010 at 10:12 pm
I heard a saying once “Hurt people, hurt people”. I think it is clear that the mother being discussed in the video has suffered great pain, and it simply is not in her ability to be the loving parent her daughter deserves, and her alcoholism is getting in the way of her relationship with God and thus other people. I believe God can take away people’s sense of shame and guilt that they carry around, or these feelings of guilt and shame can be temporarily forgotten with alcohol.
So from that perspective I can have compassion for the mother, but to be honest I might not feel the same way if I were dealing with the situation directly.
Just as the mother is an imperfect creation of God, so am I, and in a difficult situation, I may have to ask for God to love them on my behalf because I may not always be able.