Somebody's Watching Me .... Creepy or Cool?

It's an old 80s song. And it's creepy. The writer must have been schizophrenic or drugged up... or both. Either way, the song is creepy. Ok, ok first of all I'm not schizophrenic or on any drugs, except for some cold medicine. But lately it's felt as though someone has been watching me. That someone is either Boyd Bailey, Pastor Byron, Dr. Wilcox, or God. You see, I've been going through a difficult struggle with something over the past eight weeks that has caused me to feel horrible. The pits. Crapolla. Garbage. Need I go on? No, I didn't think so. I mean everywhere I have gone for the past eight weeks or so, I have either heard, read or seen something related to what has been going on in my life; exactly related. Creepy.

This thing I have been dealing with involves being used and taken advantage of. At first, I thought I was being used for help. Since helping others is a strength and a gift of mine, I was more than happy to oblige. However, that help turned into enabling. Something I noticed eight weeks too late. This individual used their weakness as their greatest ally and took advantage of me. I didn't even notice it until it was too late. I'm sitting in a meeting where this individual was supposed to also be, but refused and discovered this individual scheduled a meeting prior to mine and wrote an elaborate email defending her case. I was shocked, appalled and disgusted. I felt like leaving, throwing up and passing out, all at the same time. I thought to myself, "What the hell is the point of this meeting now?" I felt demolished, sabotaged, jaded, pretty much beat up.

So how does this relate to the thought of being watched, you ask? Well, I'm getting there. At this meeting I was dealing with a lot of anger, hatred, unforgiveness, betrayal, and a few more not so good feelings toward a fellow believer. The mediator for this meeting validated my feelings and told me "forgiveness is a process". As some of you may know, I have to work extra hard at being patient. It's my least favorite word and goal; however, when he said this, I was relieved. I was expecting it to happen instantly. And for those of you who know me, I should know better than to think such nonsense. I've read the books about forgiveness, been to the Bible studies, read the book of Matthew about a hundred times or more, heard messages from pastors about this type of thing since I was old enough to understand - and yet I still expected forgiveness to be instantaneous. So as not to feel like garbage any more; someone else's garbage for that matter. And, no, I wasn't feeling like the old adage, "Someone's garbage is someone else's treasure." I was feeling like garbage, period. Not treasure.

Another creepy feeling came upon receiving daily email devotions from Boyd Bailey; which coincided with what I was dealing with. During all this commotion, my devotions were about love. Love hopes, never fails, perseveres, and, you guessed it, love forgives. You would think I would have learned something and worked it out; but I didn't. I just read it and continued to struggle. How stubborn can one person be? Everyday, Boyd's messages were so loud and yet, I wasn't listening. It was just words on a page to me. I knew what I should be doing and I just couldn't do it. I couldn't get myself there; to the point of forgiveness. It wasn't like I wasn't trying, I just wasn't willing. I was waiting for God to do something. I was expecting Him to move so that the hurt and pain and fear would all go away. I wasn't willing to do any work. I thought, selfishly, if God loves me, he will remove this obstacle from my life and make it all better. Well, duh. He does love me, but just like the thorn in Paul's side; God did not remove it because He loves me. I was too self-absorbed to notice or care what God was doing or what He wanted. I just wanted the inconvenience to be gone.

Why do I feel like Pastor Byron is following me? Good question. Because his message yesterday was about forgiveness. How hard it is. How dangerous it is to hold onto the past hurts. How much God wants to do something wonderful, but can't because we won't move. You see, I was waiting for God to do something and He is up there waiting for me to make the first move. Forgive. This morning, Boyd Bailey's devotion was about pain being our teacher .. and used Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his only son as an example; which is the same lesson Dr. Wilcox used before our meeting; as a bonus. What a bonus it was!!

Pastor Byron. I love you man, but could you stop following me. I mean, really, I am sure there are much better things you can do with your life than watch mine.
... Seriously, Pastor Byron isn't keeping tabs on my life any more that Boyd Bailey would pay a PI to watch mine in order to have something to write about for his devotions. Nor would Dr. Wilcox, the mediator, for that matter. So who's watching me?

God. He watches me all the do da day. He knew all this would happen to me. Just like He knew what would happen to Joseph. He knew his brothers would sell his pompous self into slavery because of his pride and conceit. He knew he would be imprisoned; falsely accused. He also knew Joseph would one day save the lives of many, including his own brothers who betrayed him. His own brothers. How cruel.

I was betrayed by a fellow believer, a sister in Christ. Used, abused. She acted as though she had no idea what she had done. She said I was the abuser, the one who mistreated her; I was mean, rude insensitive, harsh; treating her as though she were stupid. Forget about all the help I offered in order for her to understand, all the questions I had graciously answered, all the hard work I had done for her, all the forgiveness I had offered her without her knowledge. OOH! All the nerve. Of all the backstabbing, no good, conniving, son's of a biscuit eating bull dog, low-down, dirty rotten, scheming things to say. And all for what? So she would look like the victim and I the victimizer, the brute. Now, that is what's so damn hard to forgive. It's hard for me to forgive a manipulator, someone who plays the sympathy card, someone who is so good at "playing dumb" so that others will feel sorry and bend an ear. That's how I got into this mess in the first place. I believed it. I bought into it. I was a sucker. I feel like that cartoon character who has just realized they were the brunt end of the joke and their head turns in to a lollipop with the word "sucker" painted on it (for some of you a lollipop is a sucker).

Pastor Byron's message spoke to my heart. You have no idea how many times I have had flash backs and red-flag reminders and yet I still hardened my heart towards the situation. What a stubborn mule I am at times.

Sometimes God wants us to move. We are expected to move. He can't do it for us; otherwise we would be nothing more than spoiled children. Which is exactly what I was acting like. I was behaving like a spoiled-rotten, good for nothing brat. In that, I wasn't willing to move. I was throwing a spiritual temper tantrum while expecting God to give me what I wanted; yet I was unwilling to give Him what He wanted, my heart, my feelings, my attention, my hurt, my pain. In my unwillingness, I couldn't see the forest through the trees. I knew they were there, but I just couldn't see them.

After this morning, I see them. I have chosen to forgive. I will choose to forgive as often as necessary in order for God to restore that which was broken; my heart.

Thank you Boyd Bailey for your daily messages. They speak to me, even days later.
Thank you Dr. Wilcox for your nurturing words of wisdom.

Thank you Pastor Byron for your willingness to communicate the difficult to the difficult regarding the most difficult. Every drive by will be met by a choice; every moment relived I will choose to forgive.

Thank you to my fellow believer for hurting me. Thank you for using me. Through you, I have had the opportunity to trust God, trust you or trust myself and my own feelings. Through you, I have had the chance to revisit forgiveness and taste the pain and resentment as well as the Lord's goodness. Through this, I have had anger and bitterness and yuck. I am glad and praise God; for if it not for this, as hard as it is for me to write this now - without stopping to ask forgiveness and to forgive you, I may have never learned the importance; the necessecity of forgiveness.

Thank you God for following me; stalking me. Thank you for allowing pain and hurt in my life. Thank you for lessons learned. Thank you for the tears and heartache. Thank you for the bitterness and resentment; the hostility and anxiety. Thank you for restoration and peace. Thank you for the damage done and the repairs underway. Thank you for the chance to be used and abused in order to run to you, next time, rather than run from you.

II Corinthians 4:7-8; 15-18
But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all‑surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.
All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God. Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.