“If love dwells in you, you have no enemy on earth”. This quotation, written by St Ephrem the Syrian, is meaningful and is not a piece of cake to put into practice as humans’ relation has its twists there and here. People say that cultivating successfully and flourishing in relationships with other people is both an art and a long life process.
The quotation by St Ephrem the Syrian hit the nail on head amidst my disappointment. I was hurt by a person that I consider as a friend. This message is totally lit as sometimes when I am over the moon, I might only read this message without further deliberation but when I am down, I could deeply resonate with the message. I believe each of us has ever experienced the moments that we are hurt by our closed ones. No one is immune to this situation.
The psychologists and motivators have proposed so many methods and techniques on how to deal with other people. But, if we take a close look at these, the spirit behind all these teachings is to put ourselves as the center of everything. Unfortunately, all these things do not work well as humans are limited and our sins have corrupted our capacity to love God and people unconditionally. If we rely on ourselves, we will miserably fail.
This verse should help us as the sons and daughters of God to build a good rapport with other people. God himself has demonstrated the true act of love by sending his begotten son dying on the cross. This deed shows one of God’s quality/identity that is love. If we proclaim that we are Imago Dei, God’s image, we should live like He did. We are instructed to love people including the person who hurts us. Jesus prefers to keep loving us despite the fact that he knows that His love will not always be in return.
When my friend had hurt me, I was tempted to feed up my ego by going away and shutting down all possible contact that I have with this friend without further discussion and reconciliation. And I would definitely end up being alone and lonely and I will never finish cooking up this issue in the future. I will experience the same thing over and over If I don’t learn how to deal with this. Above all, the Word of God helped me to try to put myself on this friend’s shoes, find good things that this friend said, and talk about this issue with this friend. This was not easy as I had been reluctant to get interacted with people and I had lost my energy. Again, the Word of God reminds me of being a son and daughter of God is not merely about His grace, blessings, and eternal life. Being a child of God means to readily suffer and bear the cross; doing uneasy and uncomfortable things out of my comfort zone. Doing things that I don’t want to do and doing things that might be impossible for me to do. The grace of a child of God means to have the blessing to suffer with Him as Jesus has completed the hardest part and won the fiercest battle.
By Deisyi, Indonesia.
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