it puzzles me that we often are most hurtful to those we love, to the members of our own families. several days ago, a close relative of my wife called her. my wife could tell her relative was angry when she began talking. almost immediately in the conversation, this person began lashing out at my wife over a perceived slight. as my wife tried to explain the circumstances, the relative kept interrupting, refusing to hear my wife. i heard my wife say to her caller that she ought to just calm down so they could talk more rationally. her request to let go of the anger was ignored. at the end of the conversation, the relative told my wife that she would just call back another time when "they were both calmer," as if my wife had initiated the anger.
soon after, my wife had occasion to visit with another close relative who reported getting a call from the same relative who was angry with my wife. she, too, reported that this person was angry and "chewed her out," accusing her of having listened in on the earlier call to my wife, though she was not with my wife when the first call took place. the two recipients of their common relative's tirades handled them very differently. my wife had tried to explain why her relative's anger was unwarranted, while the second victim of her ire just listened until the angry caller had finished venting. i'm not sure which approach was best--my wife let her disagreeable relation know that she wasn't going to be intimidated by her, while the patient listener left the impression that the abusive relative's anger was justified, but she at least got the anger out of her system for a brief period of time.
she reported that this caller went on to complain that no one ever called her, that no one suffered as she did, that her life was a miserable round of taking her ailing, elderly husband from one doctor's appointment to another. both my wife and her patient relative bemoaned this woman's unhappiness and wished they could help her. i pointed out that it was she who had to fix what was wrong in her life, that her suffering stemmed from her own refusal to let go of her victimhood. she believes that her suffering stems from her treatment by an abusive father and first husband, from her abandonment by her only child though they have since reconciled, from her "crazy" neighbor, from her aging husband, from the failure of her relations to call or visit her, while in the end it is she who pushes others away and makes time spent with her a misery. it is true that she was abused by her father and first husband but her refusal to let go of her bitterness and anger towards them and her failure to forgive or come to terms with her history has made her someone who is angry at the world and all who want to love and care for her. she pushes others away as if she believes she is unworthy of love and suspicious of those who try to show her compassion. in the end, her actions towards others cause them to behave towards her as she expects them to, further confirming her belief that all her problems are caused by those around her rather than by herself.
may we understand that we often get what we expect. maybe this is part of the truth in jesus' words when he said, "ask and it shall be given to you, seek and you shall find." if we act with kindness and compassion and believe that others will respond to us in the same way, that is usually what we receive from them. may we see the hurting child in those who treat us with contempt, thus changing our attitudes toward them and perhaps in the process changing them as well. shalom.
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