love your enemy?

This past week in Sunday School we talked about the passage in Matthew 6 that deals with how to love your enemy. In theory it is a really easy idea. Do good, pray for them...basically treat them how you would want to be treated. In reality this is not so easy.

I don't have very many enemies I would say. The majority of people I am angry at over time is very small and does not tend to last very long. There are people who have deeply hurt me that I do not see often that are sometimes hard to be loving towards but overall I would say that I have come a long way in not holding grudges.

However there are some people, well one in particular who I see everyday who I have a really hard time loving. She was a friend I thought but over the last 5 or so months she has done one thing after another to show me she does not care about me at all. I was warned by another friend that this would be the case but I guess I tend to hope too much for the best.

Anyways, today I thought, I'll start by praying for her each day. One of the things I was praying about this morning led me to see that some of her attitude possible comes from some pain in her life in the last couple of months. It made me feel sorry for some of my negative attitude. However, I got to work this morning and already have had two email communications with her that have not felt loving from her. They have felt more like slaps in the face. I am having a very very hard time first of all not lashing out and second of all not giving my notice to leave. I want so badly to not care, to let it roll off but the stress of the job on top of that just does not help in any way.

So I guess I keep praying, I pray that God give me the strength to turn the anger to love, the frusteration to understanding and though she may not deserve it to learn how to love her.

And I keep reminding myself it is 47 more days to hang in there!