I believe God and I read the Bible. There’s a lot of good information in there. There are some things I do not understand at all and there are some that are so challenging I wonder if I could ever do them. One particularly challenging action is loving my enemies. Related to my “I’m Back” post, I have been working on going beyond forgiving people to actually letting go of the bitterness I feel toward them. This has been incredibly hard. It’s easy to want good for my children, my grandchildren, my husband, people who are nice to me, people I don’t even know…But to truly love and want good for someone I have been hurt by or am angry with, well now, that is perplexing! When I am dealing with enemies, I want nothing to do with them. In my darkest moments I sometimes hope they drop dead (on their own, not by my hand; and yes, I really do think that way sometimes…not proud!).

Lately, I have been turning a corner toward loving and wanting good in the lives of people I haven’t wanted to love. This has been an elusive experience for me most of my life. It feels good to love and not harbor hate. I believe staying away from ruminating on the bad parts of these relationships has helped. All that tail swishing I learned from the horses through equine therapy is really paying off! I am not pretending nothing hurtful happened, I’m just not letting it rob me of joy or snatch my love for people.

I’m experiencing this breakthrough today. I take steps forward and steps back so I’m not saying I’ll never harbor icky thoughts or feelings towards others. What I can hold onto is knowing I’m capable of this previously unconquered thought shift. I will find my way back to it again because I know the way and it feels so much better than hate! 🙂