Your challenge this week is to:
Ask God to take the burden of hurt from a friendship from your heart
- Ask for wisdom
- With the help of the Holy Spirit, take an honest look at your part in a frenemy relationship
- Give the grace you hope you receive in friendship
- If a relationship was unhealthy or destructive, to move on with an open heart to new friendships
I have recently been hurt by someone. We were in a support group together and everything is supposed to be in confidence. She told people outside the group some things that i said about a relationship im in. Then she wrote an email about how she wanted this man that i am seeing. She has claimed to be my friend and a christian, how could she do this to me. Once before we were in a covenant group together and she told something that was said by someone and i got blamed for it. She led people to believe it was me before finally accepting the blame. I forgave her and resumed being her friend. I dont know if i can forgive her again although i know i have too. God forgives me for sinning so i have too but its so hard. I would love to read your book but just dont have the money right now. Any advice on how to deal with her? She is blameing other people for her telling these things. She wont accept responsibility. She has been kicked out of the group, but is that enough? Im really struggling with this.
Sue
Hey Sue, It sounds like your friend has a problem keeping confidences. I think we all have met people like this. I have a close relationship that I treasure, and yet I know that I cannot tell her things that I want kept in confidence. She just doesn’t have that ability. I don’t get it, but it is what it is. She’s loving, generous, amazing, actually. But I have said in the past, “I want this to be between you and me,” and later found out it was told to many, and she would say, “But I only told family”. Her motivation isn’t to hurt or even gossip.
When we see that a person has a weakness, we don’t define them totally by that weakness. We see it in relation to their whole character. I love this person, and she will always be someone special to me, but my confidant? Nope.
Now if a person is vindictive, hurtful, deceitful and their motivation is evil or wrong, then that’s when we give them so much room. We don’t respond to evil with evil, but we pray for that person. We are truthful with them, (after prayer, after examining our own heart, after asking for wisdom, and in relation only to what took place), and we don’t punish them (because that’s not our job). She has been removed from the group, now it’s time to remove the resentment from your heart, with God’s help, and move on to live fully.