Returning Anger with Love
“I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.”
“For if you love them which love you, what reward have ye?”
- Mathew 5: 44, 46
People are corrupt. All of us are. Your spouse going to mess up. Your spouse is going to say things that are going to hurt you. Sometimes it will be on purpose, sometimes it will be unintentional. You will get hurt.
You cannot fight fire with fire that is why firetrucks contain water. Trying to sooth your soul by using anger to fight against anger will not sooth you. It will result in increased pain. As you hurt your spouse, your spouse will hurt you back. You will start ruminating on the negatives about your spouse. It will result in you focusing on what your spouse is not doing right. When people focus on what they do not have, they are unhappy.
Responding with love requires you to let go of hate and anger in your heart. You cannot genuinely love someone, while harboring hate. Many times, it is in the act of loving someone that the anger starts to melt. Sometimes we cannot soften our hearts. It is at these times it is helpful to pray that our heart can be softened. Many people tell stories of receiving the gift of feeling God’s love for their spouse. When this gift is asked for, anger is melted and revenge is forgotten.
If your spouse loves to harm you, you do not have to allow yourself to get hurt in order to demonstrate love. You can love someone, while still maintaining your physical and emotional sovereignty. If someone is putting you down, you have the right to end the conversation. If someone is physically harming you, you have the right to remove yourself.
You do not have to accept the hurtful messages as true in order to love someone. You can discount messages that you know are false. You do not have to rely on your spouse for your sense of value. Your spouse is corrupt and if your value comes from your spouse, the message about who you are will be corrupt. Your value should come from yourself and your Creator.
Loving someone does not mean that you condone their behavior or accept their hurtful messages. Loving someone means that you are not a vessel that contains anger. It means that you are filling yourself with light, peace, and love. It means that you are feeling lighter, because you are not ruminating about negative content. Your mind is dwelling in an area that is experiencing the energy and uplifting power that comes from love.
Loving someone who has just been unkind does not mean that you are letting them “get away with it.” A spouse who is cruel is not getting away with anything. That spouse is harboring anger and hate. In doing so, they are a vessel of negativity. It is a miserable state that they are in, and the state itself is a painful consequence. You do not have to stand and allow yourself to be a punching bag. You can walk away and they can deal with the emotional turmoil that they are fostering. If they are alone with the turmoil, the only recourse is to resolve it themselves. If you fight back, you run the risk of justifying their actions.
When you fight against anger with anger, it never ends. You are a vessel of hate. Your spouse is a vessel of hate. Both of you justify your actions. Both of you see yourself as being the better person. You both see the other as the instigator. Your mind is on making them change.
When you fight against anger with love, the conflict ends for you. You are no longer harboring and maintaining corrosive thoughts in your mind. Your core can be centered. Your thoughts can freely move to other people and projects, instead of hyper focusing on your spouse’s errors. You are not locked in battle. You are free.