Life is constant conversion and repentance

I have always found it really difficult to respond well when I’m hurt by the same person many times in the same way. Like anyone, I can forgive easily when someone says sorry, but when hurt is caused over and over it makes my heart shrink back to the safety of distance. I can easily become discouraged and feel victimhood and all the righteousness that comes with holding onto a secret pain. Not that Our Lord isn’t there with us in the secret pain of our heart. He is right there. But He doesn’t want to leave us there.

I read Elder Thaddeus’s book ‘Our thoughts determine our lives’ last year and it taught me so much about how our thoughts and feelings about a situation or person can have a powerful effect on our circumstances. 

The most powerful thing I can do when hurt is pray, is run into the loving arms of My Father.

And rather than dwelling on the hurt and praying that person could change, I can dwell on the times I’ve sinned and caused hurt. I can be mindful that my own emotional coldness in response to hurt actually perpetuates the situation.

I can be aware of all the times I’ve been blind to the hurt I’ve caused due to being hurt.

Jesus please reveal the hurt and pain within others that causes them to hurt and cause pain, so that I can have an insight into their secret suffering and feel the compassion You do for them.

Without the Grace of God, none of us can do good, we are all subject to our emotions and disordered passions.

A reminder to myself…

When someone hurts me I can immediately ask The Lord for the Grace to contemplate my sins so rather than responding with anger, resentment  or righteous indignation, I can respond with prayer and blessings for that person, in the knowledge that due to all the intentional and unintentional pain I’ve caused others over the years, through my own sins, I don’t  deserve better treatment.

Insight into my sinfulness cools the fire of sin with the fire of purgation.

I can offer, the struggle I go through as I wrestle with my own sinful nature, as reparation and a lesson in humility.

I only have a short while on this earth to live what Jesus asks.

Please Jesus, give me insight into my own sins, ( of which there are many) rather than the sins of others and grant me a Holy fear of God and to love Him more than my own life so that rather than adding hurt to hurt, I cause no harm to others.

Amen