...About the Jerk at the Ball Game

Hello my love,

I love you so much, and I want to make you happy.  I want to be so close to you, and surround myself with your life.  I'm just having a difficult time with...your family.

I know you love all the members of your family, as well you should.  Sometimes I just really REALLY struggle to be nice to some of your other people. When you look at me, I know you see the potential I have to be the very best version of myself.  That's just who you are. That's how you love.    And when you look at them, you see the best version of them as well. I just don't always have the gift of your vision.

Sometimes I just see an obnoxious big-mouthed jerk yelling at referees and high school students at a basketball game.  I just want to scream in his face, not meet him with love.  Surely, he could be kind, or use that big mouth and intensity to praise your name and spread your word, but he doesn't.  He offers to fight the other parents and it makes me angry! Wrongly, perhaps, but you have to admit, it makes him hard to like.

Sometimes I see parents letting their kids wear makeup WAY too young, or treating their kids like an intrusion into their lives, and it makes me so upset!  Or when people treat me like I have no value whatsoever, and speak to me like I'm an idiot.  Ooh!  That really lights my fuse!  I know I'm supposed to love them, because YOU love them, and YOU care about them, but sometimes it's so hard!  Like the original bad boy, Cain...

 ...The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering,but o Cain ad his offering he did not look with favor.  So Cain was angry and dejected. Then the Lord said to Cain: Why are you angry? Why are you dejected?  If you act rightly you will be accepted;but if not, sin lies in wait at the door: its urge is for you, yet you can rule over it. (Genesis 4:4-7)

So, maybe I need to step back a minute, and think this through.  Maybe they'd be incensed if they knew how I felt about them. Maybe they hate what they see in me. Perhaps when I'm angry and dejected I need to remember what you said to Cain.  "if you act rightly you will be accepted."  I CAN CHOOSE if I let sin rule over me as it lies in wait at the door, hoping to devour me.

Spoiler alert:  CAIN CHOSE POORLY.

Lord, help me choose better than Cain.  Help me to NOT slay my brother with my ugly words, and hateful thoughts.  Help me to be my brother's keeper enough to pray for him, and lift him up to you, before he gets beat up at a basketball game.  Help me to hold your family up in prayer, and compassion, and not in disapproval and judgement.  When I do that, I'm NOT acting rightly, and you don't find that acceptable.

Help me to love you enough to see them as our family, not just yours.  Help me to see them as a part of us.  Help me to love better!

Love,

Me