Relax, Release & Rejoice

When I was in highschool I wrote a poem called "never again am I the fool".  Words of which I had no experience, mind you, but many girls who read it could identify with the words.  It chronicled being ridiculed and hurt and not standing up for yourself.  Basically, it was letting the other person off by not making them take responsibility for hurting you, while you sit back and suffer in silence.  They've had all of their say, but you felt too hurt to speak up for yourself.  I'm not sure at the time where all of that came from (high school poem), not having any experience to draw from, but I've always enjoyed expressing myself through writing.

Often we become marthyrs in relationships, especially women of God.  A marthyr is a person who sacrifices something of great value and especially life itself for the sake of principle.  Let me explain what I mean.  We give the power to the person who is hurting us to control the outcome of the end of the relationship.  We allow them to strip us of our right to be emotionally released from the relationship because we do not get the opportunity to say the things that we need to say to get a release.  This is why we do it, we feel we have to miss our opportunity to express and release on the person who hurt us because we are women of God.  We are giving them our permission and blessing in essence to have their way by not "effectively" communicating our feelings. I did say effectively communicating, because you can communicate ineffectively by screaming and shouting and not being very clear about what it is you want to say.  Often, we do not release because we don't believe that it is within our right to express to the other person how what they did to us made us feel.  We think it's our obligation to suffer as a christian.  But the bible says, if we sufer with HIM (Christ), we shall reign with him (2 Tim 2:12).  The person who is hurting you is not doing it so God can get the glory and this is not for the cause of Christ.  So, we end up suffering in silence longer and to a greater degree because we let them take our release opportunity away.

I'm not saying we need to behave inappropiately or put sugar in their gas tank, I'm simply saying that communicating what is in you will release the weight of what has happened to you.  You will have fewer coulda, shoulda moments afterwards when you carefully think out what you need to say and say it so that thing won't stay with you and torment you.  I know somebody knows what I'm talking about today!  We have walked around what we really wanted to say because we were still ,even after being hurt, holding on to the hope of reconciling.  In the majority of cases, that's not going to happen.  Likely, he has already moved on and has someone else in his life when he finally told you or has been thinking about having someone else is his life.  Instead of dealing with it for what it is, we don't allow ourselves to get the necessary release so we can move on.  We stay in a emotional stall with someone who has moved on with their life. 

Single sisters, we can be so vulnerable because of lonliness that we take more than we should and demand less than what we need.  We are willing to take less because we feel its more than what we have now.  But its not okay to give someone all and leave nothing for yourself.  The wake up call is this, if your feelings were so important to him, he would have given you an opportunity to have your say.  But he was selfish in that his feelings were of greater importance.  Did he break up by text message, even a phone call?  Both are coward moves.  He's afraid to face you.  I'm just going to really keep it real today.  It is a coward who cannot face a woman with whom he has had a relationship.  Make him man up! I'm doing a little bit of man bashing today, just so you can get the significance of how important it is for you to communicate your feelings so you can let go.  If you've allowed the moment to slip by, then let one of your sisters be a sounding board.  But if there is a next time around, you make sure you chime in on how this has made you feel.  "I didn't get to say this" is what many of us will eventually come to.  A missed opportunity.

Considering all that I have said, why did you let him off the hook?  He didn't deserve it, but you deserved to get free so you could move on.  Perhaps you don't speak out of fear, perhaps out of insecurity or brokenness from the past, but relinquishing the power to hurt you and not let you speak up when you need to is and should be a definite no can do for you in the future.  People only do to us what we allow.  There are things that happen because God allows it, then there are the things that happen because we allow it.  Perhaps the relationship was not ordained by God and you feel some level of guilt over the whole thing, but does not mean that he gets a free pass on trampling over your feelings.  I think not! 

You are not Joan of Arc, we are not robots, indeed we are women of God, but you can still speak the truth in love.  The focus being that we are actively communicating.  Do not allow the enemy to trap you into believing that you have to be a doormat for someone else's insecurity and shortcomings.  You certainly are a valuable asset to the kingdom, to the Lord, and many friends, family and loved ones.  You are valuable, so don't do it.  After you said what you need to say then relax, release, and rejoice because now it's time to move on.