Finally

I was recently on facebook and a picture of a family came across my feed. I spoke about them a little bit, then my wife said these words…

“You can say that Phillip but I was done with them 22 years ago.”  Then she told me about a conversation she overheard that ended her friendship with them.   Basically, it was a conversation where they were bashing me, and she didn’t take it lightly.  It was enough for the friendship to end right then and there.

I have thought about what my wife said concerning that situation for the last few days…

Why do I hold on to them with positive feelings?  Why do I go out of my way to like them?  Why have I never gotten to the place where I could state – “they are not really my friends?” Where does this misguided loyalty to them come from?

I think I know…

It’s hurt.

Hurt that I have tried to hide. Hurt that I have masked by doing the “christian thing” and thinking good about them rather than admitting what they truly are —–

Not friendly.

I think sometimes we do not judge people because we feel like that isn’t the christian thing to do…

“We shouldn’t  judge” is what is thrown around as a biblical truth when it isn’t one.  The Bible teaches clearly that we ARE to judge other people.

Yes – We are expected to… by God… to make judgements.

What the Bible tells us not to do is be judgmental.  That is when we make judgements and then look down on people as a result of that judgement.

Regardless – when we take the “No Judgement in any form” rout – we never get over the pain those people caused us.  When we can’t admit that they were wrong; what they did was evil; and when we only will allow ourselves to say something nice about people who would never say anything nice about us; we wind up enabling the hurt to expand and get worse. Furthermore, when we take the “nice” rout by not calling a spade a spade we hinder healing from occurring.

I am a master at preventing my own healing from happening…

I need to get bad at it…

I need to admit what people really are…

Yes – the Bible teaches us not to gossip, slander, or spreed things about people to the community at large.  This is true.   We should be careful what we say and use wisdom as to not allow our tongues to say just anything we want to… to anybody… degrading people as we go.

BUT! In the privacy of our own heart, we need to allow ourselves to say – “that person is evil, what they did hurt me badly and they were never really my friends, because real friends don’t attack each other like this.”

After all the Bible teaches CLEARLY there are people in the world (and unfortunately in “the church”) that are toxic and we are not required to be around those people or treat them like they are our friends when they have no intention of returning the favor.

I am thankful for my conversation with my wife this week.  I have been covering up that pain for a long time, now in admitting the truth about this family I already feel the healing beginning…

and its an awesome place to be.