In this episode we are having a conversation on loving the ones in our life that is hard to love. I am positive this is a topic that many of us have struggled with or have had experience with. We want to show the love of Jesus well, but are unsure how. Well, today I am sharing with you ways that might help you move along in that journey of yours.
Connect with me as you journey on in your mindset transformation! Now offering life coaching as a service, click the link below to get schedule a call with me.
In this episode we are having a conversation on loving the ones in our life that is hard to love. I am positive this is a topic that many of us have struggled with or have had experience with. We want to show the love of Jesus well, but are unsure how. Well, today I am sharing with you ways that might help you move along in that journey of yours.
Connect with me as you journey on in your mindset transformation! Now offering life coaching as a service, click the link below to get schedule a call with me.
I'm excited to connect with you! Remember, you can do hard things! "I can do all things through Him who strengthens me"- Philippians 4:13
*Affiliated with Painting Miracles, INC & Certified Life Coach through the I-A.M System
Hey friend, welcome to the Restored Mind Podcast, where we are going to be talking about various life topics surrounding mindset transformations. These topics are coming from a faith lens and will propel you into a life of peace and joy. My name is Caroline, wife, mom of three, daughter of the one true king. Host of this podcast and certified light coach through the I am system by Painting Vehicles Incorporations. My hope is that this podcast brings God's light into your life and you break free from the chains that are holding you back. Friend, it is time to shift your mindset into one that will help you flourish. Ready? Let's go. Hello and welcome to the restored mind podcast. My name is Caroline, my friend. How are you doing this week? I hope that you have been well, if you are a returning listener, thank you so much that you are coming back again to spend some time with me. And if you are a new listener, I'm excited that you are here. I hope that today's episode is inspiring to you and that it gives you encouragement to do the hard thing, because you can do hard things. Here at the restored mind podcast, we are looking at. Mindset transformations that comes from. A faith lens. And what that basically means is that we are looking at scripture to help ground us so that we can go out into the world with the peace and joy that we've been searching for. This month's theme has been about love and week one, we talked about how to love yourself better. Which I shared with you, how self-love is not only about pampering sessions, but also about caring for your soul. And then in week two, I talked about how to walk in love. This is the episode where I shared with you. The one Bible verse that used to anger me, which comes from Ephesians, I talked about how that angered me and the chaos that had brought into my marriage when I was not submitting to my husband and the lessons that I learned in that season of my life as a married woman. In week three, which was last week, we talked about fighting for your marriage. This is the episode where I brought my husband on to talk about the importance of communication, forgiveness, and what being selfish could do in your marriage. Now, if you have noticed. All of these episodes, highlight love in a way that we might see what love could potentially look like. It is easiest to love the ones who we favor the most and harder to love the ones in our family or the people. That are still in our life, who we don't have a strong relationship with for one reason or another. Keep in mind that this lack of relationship that I'm talking about, does it have to be on the scale of any sort of extreme either? It could just be that we simply heard something about someone and made our own assumptions on that person. Before knowing the truth. And I know that you're probably thinking about somewhere right now in your life. Or in your family, that's hard to love. But when we look at someone in the perspective of an assumption that we've made, our first initial reaction is to distance ourself from that person. If we've already have. Somewhat of a relationship with them. In our mind, we can potentially label them as a negative person. Or a weird person if we don't have a relationship with them. And so we stay away from them because we don't want our peace of mind to be disturbed. In either case though when we do that, we actually forfeit the opportunity to get to know them and build a relationship with that person. Today, I'm going to try my best to talk about how we can love someone who is hard to love. And you're absolutely right. It's not going to be easy because like I said, you're probably thinking about that person. And when you think about loving them, it might sound more like a chore rather than something that you're excited to do. If you are trying to build a relationship with them, you'll probably find yourself starting over. A lot. Before you began to have a steady pace of growth in that relationship. if you're already trying to establish something with them, maybe the growth isn't where you want it to be, or isn't happening as fast as you would like it to. And then you feel like you're stuck. But my friend remember that in a relationship, it takes two people to commit a people to invest time and effort into it. So if you factor in personality, differences, character traits, and life experiences, then yeah, it can be much more difficult to. Start trying to love that person better. The main idea here though, is for you to be transformed and renewed in your mind. Not for any of the gains that would come from. Building that relationship to say that you are proud that you reached out first or tried to make it work. If it doesn't work. It's not about bragging rights. It is about seeing the other person, how God sees them. And I have to say that sometimes we see other people's flaws first. Before we see the brokenness and that could be the number one reason why we tend to distance ourselves from the person in our life. That is hard to love. But see God sees all of our flaws and all of our brokenness. And guess what? He still offers us an invitation to have a relationship with him. So this episode is for the one who is really searching for a way to build a better relationship with the person in their life that is hard to love, or maybe you're already in that season where you are trying to love someone who is hard to love regardless of this episode is for you. I hope that it serves as a beautiful encouragement for you to not give up. If you are. Thinking that this isn't something for you and the person that comes to mind, you're not interested at all and building a relationship with them. I get it. But I still urge you to walk in the path of forgiveness for any hurt that this person may have caused you or vice versa? I know that it can be uncomfortable when we talk about forgiveness and there might be a feeling of un-justification there because you might be thinking, why do I have to be the one to forgive when they're the ones that messed up? But there is a sense of healing on the other side. Of forgiveness. And it gives us peace and healing that we need. However to get there, you have to be willing to put in the work. Jesus talks about loving our enemies. He says in Matthew five, 43 and 44. You have heard that it was said you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. Then he asked in verse 46 and 47 For, if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same. And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same. And as I read this, I can't help. But think that Jesus is challenging us to go further than what the majority is doing.. Jesus takes it a step further And says you therefore must be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect. That sounds daunting, right? Because you might know that you're not perfect. And yes. Nobody is perfect. We cannot be perfect. So don't be disheartened or upset It does not mean that all is lost. These words are not meant to condemn you, but to help remind you that God has offered us salvation. Which has given to us. By grace through faith salvation through Jesus. It is not anything that we have done but has everything to do with his mercy. So yes. Loving someone who is hard to love is definitely hard. But it's not impossible. To love someone who is hard to love. We have to get past the judgment phase. Judgment is when we place our idea of how worthy someone is of receiving something. So in this particular conversation, the judgment would be on how worthy someone is of our love. There's a lot of reasons why we might start out with judgements from the get-go. Right. It could be that where we're getting this information from. If that person was to gossip, maybe wesaw a photo of that person, Which captures a moment in time, but can also be perceived in many, many, many ways. Or maybe it was just a minor interaction that you had with that person. That made you jump to the conclusion that you did. The truth is that we all judge, we can't help, but form an opinion on what we think of someone. There is a difference though. We can judge to condemn, which by the way, who are we to even do that? We can judge as a way to gauge what boundaries we may want to place. in a form of that relationship that we're trying to build with that person. Right. So we want to read our audience as mark Cuban would say. But we also want to be open. So that there is a level of being vulnerable that takes place. It's about sharing general information in the beginning and then moving on from there. The information that we receive might not be completely accurate. I'll give you an example. Growing up. My family used to label me as someone who is not the sharpest tool in the box or the ditzy one, because it took me a while to comprehend a joke. I, one of those person that if you tell me a joke and I don't get it, I needed to explain to me. But then I am told that the joke's not funny anymore. Once that happens. it also was hard for me to comprehend something that was new to me. Not always, but most of the time, I felt like if there was new information being presented to me, It was hard for me to comprehend it. And I always thought that there was something wrong with me, but the truth of the matter is that. When you are presented with new information, it has not yet computed into your brain. And so you might not understand how something works and that is okay. Completely. Okay. I thought that there was something wrong with me. But. But yes, it was for jokes and for giggles within the family, what they labeled me as the ditsy one, or made jokes about my comprehension skills. And so two things happen to me. One is that I became that person for them. And honestly, I felt silly asking questions that the majority might have already known, which. Then became a joke. And of course it made me feel bad and embarrassed that I asked a question. And two, it got really frustrating when I didn't think that anyone was taking me seriously because, in their eyes, I was the quote unquote ditzy one. So the reason why I say this is not accurate, or to think about the information that you're receiving as not being completely accurate is because people change and grow. So, who you are now is now who you are when you were younger. And you are not going to be the same person you are now in the future. Sometimes life takes us down hard, tough roads that matures, or maybe even makes us resentful. Regardless. Change took place. And if change can take place in you, my friend, it can take place in that person that you're thinking of. As you're listening to this episode. When we continue to see the family member or the person in our life who is hard to love on the grounds of what someone said about them or the assumptions that we made of them. We miss out on an opportunity to get to know that person. I am reminded of James 11 and 12, which says, do not speak evil against one, another brothers and sisters, the one who speaks against a brother or judges, his brother speaks against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law, but a judge. There is only one law giver and judge. He who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor? We have to look past the judgment phase and get to know that person. You might be asking. Okay. How, well, my friend, I believe to simply have a conversation is a great way to get to know that person. It's about giving that person the benefit of the doubt, despite what you've heard about them or the assumption you may have made about them. Talk to them, like you would a friend get to know them and their story. That doesn't mean that you have to open up and share the deepest, most vulnerable story about you, but it does mean that you do have to share something about you and then give the opportunity for that person to share as well. Getting to know them does not mean that you have to get involved in. They're life challenges. It could simply mean that you're just having a general conversation without prejudgment, which I know it can be hard to do if you've already had assumptions on them. I've heard something about them. But again, remember, we're talking about in the mindset of getting to know them. The point of this comments though, was to encourage you to see them through God's lens and not our own. I think this is the perfect opportunity to share an excerpt from my fasting journal that I took down in 2023. And it talks about my daughter, aria. So it reads. During the rain while the electricity was out, I played games with the kids, mainly Aria. It was the best invitation from the Lord to get to know aria more. We played a conversation. starter a game. And through that, I learned that. Aria is thoughtful kind filled with the holy spirit generous. And truly a daughter of God. Now I have always known these things, but witnessing it. Through the eyes of our Lord and savior was truly a gift and a breath taking moment. I am reminded that when things with the people we love get hard. They still have the light of God with them. The reason why I wanted to share this with you is to encourage you. To look at the person that you're thinking of with the light of God in them, instead of the labels that's been placed on them, whether by you or someone else. Remember that we can pray for the one who is hard to love. Right. They're not the enemy. Jesus tells us. To love them anyway, we can extend grace like how God shows us grace and mercy, which I know it's definitely hard if the person that you're thinking of doesn't have good communication skills or makes it hard for you to get close to them. These are just examples. But, you know, what makes it hard for you to love that person that you're thinking of? Regardless, my friend, I encourage you to extend grace. You can set healthy boundaries because sometimes it can feel like a thankless relationship where you're trying to love someone who is hard to love. I am reminded of how Jesus may have felt that way when he was trying to minister to his people while he was here. And. How would he died on the cross for our sins? We can still be so ungrateful at times. We ourselves. Can be hard to love at times, and yet Jesus still loves us. Despite our flaws, the invitation to be a part of this family is still there. So. Have you. Recanted on your invitation. Or is it still open? I said this in last week's episode, and I'll say it again. Relationships are hard. It takes work and commitment and time, but it's worth it. Because we are all only here for a brief moment in time. Our life is short. So do not waste this moment. On only loving those who are easy to love, but take the challenge that Jesus set before us and go where the majority won't go. Yes. It's hard, but my friend, you can do hard things. Thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to listen in on this episode. I meant what I said. You can do hard things, so don't let the daily challenges stop you from reaching your greatest potential. If you are ready to take the next step in your journey and are finding that you are in need of help and would like someone to keep you accountable, I would love to offer you my life coaching services. Click on the link in the show notes to get started there. You will also find links to my social media pages where you're able to connect with me as well. My friends, I look forward to speaking with you again next week here on the restored mind podcast. Go in peace.