I feel like God has been at work in my
heart lately. It’s just been the hardest process but at the same time it’s been
the most eye-opening as well. Lately I guess I just have been learning so much
about myself that I otherwise would have been unaware of…and as much as it may
hurt sometimes to see what you don’t want to see in yourself, I am grateful
for everything He has done and is doing in my life.
I don’t know about you, but I am the type
of person who loves to say sorry. I know that is probably pretty weird,
but I do say sorry all the time. Instead of saying “excuse me” I tend to just
say “sorry”. I guess it’s a habit of mine.
A weird example would be, when my friend
and I were heading out to lunch, she just realised that she had left her phone
in my room. And so we had to walk in again–yet I said “oh, sorry.” She just
laughed at how silly I was.
But what I also realise is that I tend
to say sorry when I don’t need to–yet when I do, I don’t.
I have some friends, of course we have had
our share of fights. Yet we always patch things up, and we never hold grudges
against each other–and all this is done without us apologising to each other.
We just know that each has forgiven and so we just get on with our lives like
nothing happened. It’s just really awkward to apologise “formally”–we
would very much rather sweep things aside and get on with our lives, instead of
shake each other’s hands or hug things out.
Being the last child, also probably has
affected my personality, in a way that I am the type who prefers to avoid
conflict completely, rather than trudge forward, head first. “Peacemaker”
they say, and yeah I guess you can call me that cause really, I would very much
rather bottle things up than confront people–cause I really am not one who is
assertive or blunt.
And because I prefer to avoid conflict and
confrontations and apologies altogether–I would always say that I have
forgiven and that I don’t hold grudges, so that we can all just get
on with our lives. Yet what I recently understood of myself is that, this is
not always true.
Recently I’ve had life be good tough on
me. I don’t know about you, but I am a feeler. (Not the kind of
feelers that are at the top of an insect’s head, but in a sense that I tend to
feel a lot.)
Being a feeler yet avoider of
conflict, I just bottled everything up. And I kept my head held high
and I went on with life, allowing people to only see the giddy, bubbly side of
me. The always-happy and grateful girl.
But in my heart I knew I was hurt.
In my heart I knew I was mad. But I just couldn’t help it. Human emotions got
the better of me.
So one night, I ranted and vented it all
out. And long story short, it got to the ears of the person whom I spoke of.
And knowing that the person was hurt from
hearing what I said, I told myself to be the bigger person and apologise. So I
did.
I told the person that my intent was not to
gossip or to ruin their reputation. I was just hurt and I needed my cry to be
heard. I needed someone to understand and I needed some sort of comfort. I said
that I didn’t want to justify what I did, but I expected
the person to understand where I was coming from and just how I
felt.
Yet after the conversation, I was all the
more upset. I was all the more hurt and I was all the more outraged. I didn’t
feel understood at all, and I thought that it all was pointless, so I decided
not to reply, fearing that I would say the wrong thing and not be able to take
it back.
***
Have you ever felt that someone has wronged
you–and you feel that you’re right and that person’s just plain wrong? You are
convinced that you’ve done the right thing, especially cause you know your own
intentions–and so you justify your actions cause your intent was not to harm.
So you expect to be understood. Have you?
If you are honest (and I hope you are),
you would probably be nodding by now because I do believe that at some point in
life, people will feel hurt. And in other times, people will inflict
the hurt.
Yet as human beings we tend to want
to be acknowledged when we are hurting, yet never want to admit it when we are
the ones who hurt someone else. If we do, we make ourselves feel
better by saying “that is not my intention to do so.”
But on the night of Silent Day what I
realised was, when we say “I don’t mean to justify, but this is how I feel…”
we are as a matter of fact justifying our actions. When we want to voice
out to people how we feel when we are in the wrong, we are actually
trying to make ourselves feel better by expecting to be understood–and
not fully admit to what we have done.
I always said that I never held grudges,
that I was forgiving, and that I was fine. But bottling things up and acting
like everything was fine does not mean that I have in fact, truly forgiven.
And that night, having God show me that I
was as a matter of fact justifying myself by pointing out my hurt and
expecting to be understood–made me realise that I did so, because I
expected an apology.
And the thing is, when you are expecting
an apology, it means that you have not forgiven.
And knowing that I have not forgiven, made
me realise that, though it was not my intention to hurt anyone, my reaction
towards the hurt I felt, hurt someone else.
That was bitterness right there. Reacting
to hurt by hurting someone else. And I never thought I’d have the courage
to say that. But yes, I do realise, that right then I was, in fact, bitter.
