HAVE YOU BEEN HURT BY AN INSENSITIVE FAMILY MEMBER?

It happens.

Many times family gatherings are a strange and strained time. They are either really, really good or really, really bad. Sometimes you give it one more chance and maybe this was the year you said,"Never again."

Always consider the cost you pay when you attempt to protect yourself from getting hurt again. In the book, Follow the Cloud, John Stickl says, "The same walls that keep us from getting hurt again also keep us from receiving love. If pain can't get in, then neither can love. Our attempt at self-protection has actually become a self-imposed prison. So over time, our hearts become numb. And a numb heart will always create an apathetic life."

Do you hear yourself say, "I don't have any feelings anymore?" "I'm over it." "I'm over them."

Those statements are flashing lights on the dashboard of your life telling you that are in self-protection mode. When you are, this is what happens--to avoid the pain, you also kill the joy. You put poison on the weeds and wipe out the flowers in the process.

Forgive. Your heart still needs to be guarded, but you must let Jesus be the one who guards it, not yourself. (I am not talking about physical or sexual abuse. You don't need to subject yourself to that. You need to forgive, but don't give access. I'm talking about family members who are rude, crude, and selfish. Just because you don't like a family member doesn't mean you are to cut them off). To "self-protect" is literally to tell the Lord that you are going to do His job because you do not trust Him, need Him or want Him. If you allow Him, He will give you the grace to love with agape love even when you are emotionally hurt, verbally attacked, or unappreciated.

Self-protection is a subtle sin. It keeps you from the abundant life. It keeps you from love. It keeps you from receiving love and it keeps you from giving love.