Transparent moment: I’m not sure I love them...

For those that don’t know, I’m a uber driver in the Chicagoland area(if you want some GOOD extra money i’ll post my referral link below for you to get started). Yesterday afternoon I was finishing my last ride to allow for my $70 bonus as I clicked accept I was moving so fast I didn’t initially pay attention to the pick up address. I just relied on the GPS to navigate me there. When I was less than 1 block away it said “arrived, Planned Parenthood...”! My heart sunk, my eyes bucked and I thought to myself I can’t do this...I cannot pick up someone who possibly just killed their baby. But there was no turning back now, she was standing outside ready and waiting walking up to my car. If I canceled the trip right while she was already at my car that would be so rude. I just prayed Lord don’t let this be what I think, please don’t let her had killed that innocent baby. She was going over 40mins away, and within that first 20min she was on the phone and I won’t share all that was said BUT she did in fact just have a abortion 😢💔 

“Owe nothing to anyone--except for your obligation to love one another. If you love your neighbor, you will fulfill the requirements of God's law“

Romans 13:8

As my heart was breaking inside my chest I heard the above scripture. I thought about how I was going to deny her that ride...how I didn’t even really want her in my car. I thought about how sad I was about her decision. I thought about how wrong it was. All in all I was judging her...so much judgement with no knowledge at all. Absent of all evidence of Christ’s love. 

As I was driving I thought about so many people and things. I thought about the 19yr old boy who just shot up the school in Florida and how a friend of mine works there. I thought about all the lives that were senselessly taken and how it could’ve been hers. I thought about the man who shot a girl I went to high school with a few weeks ago and left her for dead. 😢 This whole car ride I was fighting tears as my heart continued to break over things I was clearly still holding onto. I thought about so many injustices. So many hurtful things done by people. I thought about how my own cousin told me how horrible of a person I am, how my life isn’t worth it. I thought about the man who took my sister in laws life 2 years ago. About the man who molested me as a child. Just so many things racing through my head. 

With every situation, every heartache that crossed my mind was followed up with Romans 13:8. I would think about the wrong done and then immediately I would hear but you owe them love. Specifically we are obligated to love. Growing up I repeatedly heard “I love you but I don’t have to like you”! But what does that look like? Oftentimes it looks like withholding yourself. It looks like a shift in character. It looks like talking about the person. All these people in my memory who harmed or took away people I Love didn’t do something I liked!! Let me be clear I don’t like what they did!!!!! I don’t like that I will never see my sister in law again and that she was murdered in front of her kids and husband. I don’t like that I was molested as a child. I don’t like that a high school friend was left for dead in a alley. I don’t like that the girl that got in my car killed her child when I know so many people who wish they could have their own children. 

But when it’s all said and done, I can’t stop those things. I can’t stop senseless murders. I can’t stop sexual our verbal abuse. I can’t stop sin from taking place. I can’t right those wrongs. 

“We cannot change our past... we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it. And so it is with you... we are in charge of our Attitudes.”

~Charles R. Swindoll~

My attitude? That’s it! That’s all I can control, and even that seems uncontrollable at times. Love! I owe these heartless people love? These damaging people. These harmful people. It’s my obligation to love them? And in that moment, while pondering all the heartache I realized, I don’t love them. I don’t love with Christ’s love. Well, according to scripture that is. 

“Love never gives up.

Love cares more for others than for self.

Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.

Love doesn’t strut,

Doesn’t have a swelled head,

Doesn’t force itself on others,

Isn’t always “me first,”

Doesn’t fly off the handle,

Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,

Doesn’t revel when others grovel,

Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,

Puts up with anything,

Trusts God always,

Always looks for the best,

Never looks back,

But keeps going to the end.”

1 Corinthians 13:5-7

Love never gives up! I had given up on these people long ago! I wrote them off in my book as too far gone for redemption. Love doesn’t keep score of the sins of others. But I continued to rehearse those wrongs over and over. I remember what was done. I keep a tally of the wrongs. No matter how “justified” I thought it to be, it isn’t love. Jesus walked side by side with the very man who sold him to his murderers. Not once did Jesus shift his position or attitude towards Judas. That is true love. That is accuracy. 

So I ask you this, who has harmed you or a loved one that you still are professing “I don’t have to like you to love you”. And is that hearts confession causing you to shift in character? Have you given up on them? Have you written them off as too far gone? Have you wished harm to them because of what they did? Have you kept score of all the wrong they’ve done? Continually rehearsing it in your mind? Those things are evidence of a heart and life not yet perfected in love. Those are signs of a believer who is still self preserving.

I know what they did hurt. No, it wasn’t ok. No it wasn’t right. Yes it was painful. Yes it damaged. Yes it may have removed a piece of you that you may feel you will never get back. But the Lord requires us to love them. And yes, that commandment is a lofty one. However the privileges of our relationship with Him is that we aren’t left to ourselves. He doesn’t expect us to figure it all out. He will teach us to love the unlovable. He will give us the grace and ability to love those who have caused so much damage. That very extension of love could be the very thing they have always longed for. 

Lord, help us to love like Christ’s loves the church! How He willingly laid His life down for us. Lord let us lay ourselves aside continually. Give us the strength and desire to love even the least of them. Cause your great and perfect love to manifest in the lives of your people. No, we don’t like what people do. Yes sometimes it hurts immensely, but nonetheless we are to love them. Grow within us the willingness to walk in love accurately every day. 

Amen!! 

I’m still a work in progress, I pray my transparency helped someone. 

~Kaitlyn Marie~