God told us to love everyone. However, when you don’t like someone then you need to walk away and focus not on him or her, but the hatred you’re harboring. Otherwise, you will allow your piety to take over. Before you know it, you’re using the gospel as a sword to slice other religious people apart, which have offended you. From your point of helplessness, it will be is easy to recruit people that will mistake your kindness as righteousness, when in reality it is a hidden agenda to humiliate through the words of Christ. This game is so often used by women in the Christian faith, that it is the number one reason why many people become inactive. It is a silent, unspoken hypocrisy that is inconsistent with the teachings of the gospel. If you choose not to like someone, then avoid them. If you wish to love them, the only way to overcome your frustrations is through empathy, prayer, forgiveness and allowing yourself time to heal through distance. Try focusing on what you share as sisters in the gospel, rather than the negative aspects you dislike about that person.
Shannon L. Alder
anger, authentic-self, being-real, being-right, bittnerness, blame-shifters, blamers, blaming, christian-women, christianity-crisis, delusions, distance, fake-kindness, fake-love, false-christianity, false-love-of-christ, games, hatred, hazing, healing-others, hypocrisy, inactive-members, lack-of-communication, lessons-i-learned, listen, manipulation, need-to-be-right, no-grace, observations, pastoral-partners, pastors, pharisees, polite-hypocrisy, problems-with-religion, religions, ruining-testimonies, see-yourself, self-righteousness, sensitivity, sinning, sisterhood, unspoken-hypocrisy, walk-away, way-off-track, wisdom, words-of-wisdom