While a bit of a cliché, there is some significant truth to the quote above. “The truth is, everyone is going to hurt you. You just got to find the ones worth suffering for.”
Scripture and Holy Tradition both tells us over and over again that we are imperfect. That means that we sin. More than that, it often means that we often feel like Saint Paul:
Sin rules me as if I were its slave. I don’t understand why I act the way I do. I don’t do the good I want to do, and I do the evil I hate, (Romans 7, ERV).
Have you not ever felt that way when you say the wrong thing to a friend, to a spouse, to a parent? Have not words ever rolled out of your mouth that, even as they were exiting your mouth, there was a part of you that was horrified at what you were about to say, but you could not seem to stop yourself? If you have had that experience, then you are a typical fallen and damaged human being. Now, if your experience is that you are reading this and are wondering why people who find themselves in that situation would even be disturbed, then you are not typical but jaded and in danger of …
The thing about being a slave to sin is that you will, sooner or later, hurt any person whom you know. The inverse of that is that you will be hurt by your fellow sinner, sooner or later. This means that you need to realize that the current human condition is that you will be hurt by someone on a regular basis. So, you have some choices to make.
Choice 1 is to go about consistently being hurt by people and then holding on to that hurt feeling. Your life will most certainly become drab and colorless over time. You may also end up in clinical depression. Choice 2 is to become a saint. That is not a joke. Choice 2 is the willingness to respond to the Holy Spirit and to be changed into the image and likeness of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Even among those who take that route, none is perfect. So, I suspect that even the most holy of saints upset someone every so often.
Which bring us to choice 3. Choice 3 is for those who are just a bit slow about this whole matter of becoming a saint. Frankly, that means most of us. Choice 3 is the choice of using some wisdom. Choice 3 is the choice to decide that we can be choose to overlook some pain. Choice 3 is the choice that says that I will put up with pain from those whom I love in order to maintain our loving relationship. Choice 3 is the choice that married couples make. It is the choice that is behind the marriage vows.
More than that, choice 3 is the choice that grows along with our spiritual maturity. Choice 3 is a circle that widens as we learn to love more and more people. Choice 3 is the choice that pictures on Earth what is true about our God in heaven. Choice 3 is our measured human response to an infinite call to love one another. Choice 3 says that I know that my calling is to love everyone, but that because I am a sinner I cannot do so, therefore I choose to at least love some. Choice 3 is an honorable attempt to at least give some witness to the Kingdom of God here on Earth.
So, you have a choice. Can you find the ones worth suffering for? Can you use that as a beginning step toward the holiness of love? Knowing that you should love all, can you at least commit yourself to love some and to grow in the area of loving your neighbor as yourself? Can you choose to at least forgive some when they sin against you? And, can you leverage that to slowly begin to widen your circle of love?
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