By: Christy
Fitzwater, Author and pastor's wife.
See Denise's comments @ the end of this article.
At some point in our lives, we all feel
or have felt like giving up on someone. I know I have.
We are worn
out. We are weary with trying to understand, help or forgive someone
who does not want any help, does not care for any help. Someone who holds a
grudge and has no intentions of forgiving or moving on from a negative
situation to a positive one. Or someone that hides under the words “I’m busy”
in order to avoid spending time with you.
We have no hope. Nothing changed since last year. Actually,
in some situations, it even got worse. Nothing has changed this year either.
Why in the world should we expect anything to be better next year? It does not
matter how many times you try it is like turning around in circles. You get no
cooperation, invitations to get together go unanswered. No emails, no texts or
telephone calls.
We feel like
throwing up our hands in defeat we want to write someone off. But, deep in our
heart, we know we can’t do that!
According to the Free Dictionary by Farlex, the idiom
"to write someone off" means:
a) to give up on turning someone into something;
b) to give up on someone as a dead loss, waste of time or
a hopeless case.
We have forgotten that "while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Rom.
5:8). We have forgotten that Christ pushed past his own weariness and pain and
trudged on for the sake of love. We have forgotten that Christ held hope
we could become whole and blameless.
This usually comes with the phrase: I'm done. I'm done with him. I'm done with her.
I see you today in that difficult
relationship, so weary you can hardly take a breath. So much pain has been
inflicted that you feel you will never be healed. You've been in the middle of
the relationship challenge for so long that you can't lift your head up and
imagine things could ever change. It seems impossible to you. It seems
impossible to everyone else.
But there is the gospel.
As we pull up close to the
gospel, we remember there is hope for every man to be transformed when the
light of Christ shines into his darkness.
So, what should you do with a person's
name?
If you determine not to write it off, then the alternative is to write their name
on your heart. It's a vulnerable place, the heart. But either way, there will
be wounds, right?
It's better to pull a person in close and suffer long
than to shove him or her away!
Denise’s comments: I am posting this article because when
I read it, I felt I had written this article myself for myself. Every comment
she made, I have made at least a few times.
The temptation to say: I’m done is only
human. At times it would seem to be the logic thing to do. Walk away and give
up! But, with the Holy Spirit living in us, we know that we can never say: I’m
done.
Giving up would not give us peace. Giving up is not something the Lord would do to any of us, even if at times we deserve
it.
Instead we need to look at scripture
and see what the Lord would have us do:
Ezekiel 22:30 (NKJV) says:“So, I sought for a man among them who
would make a wall, and stand in the gap before Me on behalf of the
land, that I should not destroy it; but I found no one.”
Because the Lord was so
patient, forgiving and loving towards me, I want to stand in the gap for the ones
that otherwise I would be tempted to say: I’m done.
I also want to stand on His Word and declare and
degree what He says in Ezekiel 36:26:“I will give you (*them) a new heart and put a new spirit within you (*them); I will
take the heart of stone out of your (*their) flesh and give you (*them) a heart
of flesh.” ( * is my own version)
In Jeremiah 32:38-40: “They shall be My people, and I will be their God; 39 then I will give them one heart
and one way, that they may fear Me forever, for the good of them and their
children after them. 40 And I
will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from
doing them good; but I will put My fear in their hearts so that they will
not depart from Me.”
Once, I decide to stand in the gap and declare and degree
these scriptures over my possible “I’m done” cases, I can do what the author of
this article says to do: It's better to
pull a person in close and suffer long than to shove him or her away. Because my friends, either way we
might suffer long, and either way there will be wounds, but if we do not give up, we will not suffer in vain.
Denise
