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"And They'll Be Sorry"

             Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister. (I John 4:20-21)

“I’ll show them. I’ll show them all. I’ll be dead and then they’ll all be sorry for what they did to me.” The other day, a friend and I were talking about depression, and I shared that this idea was one that I had when I suffered from a bout of that ailment. Those may not have been the exact words, but the idea was there. She shared about a time when the same sort of idea came to her mind when she was angry. A variation I’ve heard recently is, “…I’ll leave and then they’ll all be sorry…” It’s an example of the sort of bad thinking we can fall into when we’re too caught up in negative emotions: too angry, too depressed, too hurt….

The good news is that neither I nor she died. The bad news is that on those occasions that I did leave some organization, no one raced after me and asked me to stay. Even people I counted as friends got the message and begged forgiveness. From my point of view, they were probably glad to see me gone. I’m not saying that they were glad, but they didn’t seek me out to learn why I left and I decided a long time ago that I was not going to attack anyone by revealing it.

I can’t say the events involved don’t still sting sometimes, if I dwell on them. But I know that God used the events to do me good, so how can I bear a grudge? The spotlight today is the reaction of “I’ll ______ and they’ll be sorry” or “I’ll show them.” There are times when it is necessary to remove ourselves from someone or some group for the safety and well-being of all concerned. That’s not what’s described here. This is the use of withdrawal as a weapon. And I must note that this is entirely different from “I’m angry and want some time to cool down.”

The point of “I’ll _____ and they’ll be sorry” is to punish them or cause them pain. As several people, including Nelson Mandela, have said, “Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.” Various people have defined love as earnestly seeking what is in the best interest of the beloved and desiring a healthy relationship with them. If that’s the case, then seeking to hurt them is not loving them. Seeking to hurt ourselves (even by removing ourselves from what we are supposed to love) as a means of hurting them is not loving ourselves. Once again, it’s all about relationships.

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