“But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be son’s of your Father in heaven…” Matthew 5: 44-45. 

As I walked into church for the Saturday night service and grabbed a bulletin the title said, “Love your enemies.”  Growing up in the church you often here this phrase used countless times.  I have heard many sermons on how important it is to love those who curse you, or wrong you or out to get you.  Growing up love seemed easy.  Probably because I didn’t really know what it meant to truly love – Love boundlessly that is, the way that God loves.  Usually growing up I would have my normal fights with friends or the arguments with your parents because they tell you want to do all the time but usually after the fights weather it was friends or parents you “kissed and made up.”  And maybe loving was easy because of my child like mindset that didn’t seem to have that easy bitterness of life yet, or the hardships of facing grown up life and realizing that life isn’t all that is cracked up to be.

So, back to this weeks sermon at my church.  I was already excited for how my Saturday night was going to turn out.  I had two wonderful girlfriends sitting with me and on top of that some other friends all joined since after church we were all going to head to the Orange County Fair (It is a tradition for me to go since I have been a little girl).  Saturday night services are always so refreshing since it is less crowded, you don’t have to rush to get a seat and the people you see are mostly families which brings in this warm welcome.  I knew I was ready to receive whatever the message was going to be about and asked God to open my heart to the reality of what He desires to show me.

I can’t remember all the message (if you desire to listen to it you can go to rockharbor.org and click on the message at the top that says, “Love your enemies” trust me, this message will impact you no matter where you are at in life) but I do remember starting to let the tears pour when our main teaching pastor, Mike Erre began to describe the rejection and persecution Christ went through on the cross and yet in the midst of it he loved those who rejected him, spit on him, mocked him and hung him on the cross to die.  As he began to speak about what it means to love our enemies, both my two friends put their loving arms around me as they knew exactly what was going on in my heart.  I didn’t realize it until then, but my ex-boyfriend, a man who I still love today in some form had become such an enemy in my heart.  For the last three years I was tossed back and forth on one minute him loving me and the next minute not sure about things.  The words he used to cut me down (I don’t believe it did it to be malicious, he himself wasn’t sure what he was doing) have become such a hard escape to overcome.  Insecurities that he pointed out at me and then use them against me have been tormenting me wondering if a man could ever love me the way that God desires for me to be loved.  The abuse that went back and forth has taken such a deep root in my heart.  Why can’t I just let all this junk go, why can’t I just heal?  As I sat in my chair with my girlfriends arms around me my heart was pounding inside of me and the realness of my heart was being exposed.  I will never forget when the Mike Erre said, “Sometimes we just need to be reminded that our God is big enough to handle justice and take care of all the wrong doings that have happened to us.”

As the music started I found myself walking over to the crosses around the room.  I normally don’t go to the crosses during response time, but this was a time where I knew I needed to kneel before my Father and lay it all out.  And for the first time as I knelt down at the cross with my head bowed God spoke to me and said, “No need to speak.”  So as I sat there weeping and let it all out and the amazing thing is that I didn’t need to say a word, He knew my heart, He knew exactly what I wanted to say, but had no words to say.  All he wanted from me was an open heart to be humbled by him.  For the next 10 minutes I just sat there at the cross weeping.  And my passionate heart could only say, “God I want to trust that you are big enough to handle this situation.”

As I walked away from the cross to head back to my seat I felt this sense of peace wash over me.  A peace in my heart that says, “I am big enough, trust me and I will show you.”  So with my hands raised during the last song I praised God and thanked Him for showing me the truth inside of my heart and being so patient and loving in all of it.

And so I received a phone call this week from a person who has become a second mother to me, telling me how she thought about me during the Sunday morning message (the same message I heard on Saturday night).  She challenged me to pray for my ex and to allow God to use that prayer time to continue to heal my heart for the last 3 years of much heartache.  It has been 5 months since I partied ways with my ex and yet I can only recall one time where I truly sincerely prayed for him.  I was sharing with my life group last night how for the three years he was in my life I constantly prayed for him in so many ways, yet in the last 5 months my heart has been cold toward him and praying for him was not something I wanted to do.  As Rebecca challenged me this week to pray for him I can not help but feel a sense of the spirit leading me to do so and giving me the words and strength to pray for this “enemy” of mine that I have created in my heart.

After life group last night I had my life group lay hands on me and pray over my heart and the continual healing process it is taking for me to move on with my life.  Never did I think that I would be here in this situation.  When you are a hopeful person like myself you believe in the best when it comes to relationships, work, friendships and life.  It still baffles me how you can be so close to someone and then walk right next to them like you never knew them.  I don’t understand it.

We all have enemies within the depths of our heart and even justifiable so, but as Christians Christ calls us to live a different standard, a different life that says to loves those who hurt us, to pray for those who wound us.  How would our life be affected if we actually lived up to this?  How would our hearts change?  My hope is that in the midst of praying for those people it means letting go.  It means saying, “God I leave them in your hands.”  And us I understand it is not easy, it can be a battle, but I promise it is a battle worth fighting, it is a life style worth living and maybe we don’t get anything out of it, but what we do get is a Heavenly, Perfect Father who is pleased.  And even in the midst of being obediant our perspective of life changes and instead of living in bondage or expectations we can live a life of freedom.