Honest Relationships

Along the line of the previous entry, "Boundaries," I am sharing today some of the thoughts first posted on October 6, 2008, on my Finding the Faith Way site with the title, "Things Mama Taught Me: Tell the Truth."

I grew up valuing honesty, telling the truth, because that was the example lived before me in my home and in the community where we lived. There is one person, however, with whom I have found it especially difficult to face the truth.

Me.

Sometimes I haven’t recognized the truth, even though it was right there. Through many years of my adult life, and without realizing it, I surrounded myself with people who used me. Organizations that deceived and cheated, that took serious advantage of me financially (in the name of God). Strong leaders who used the subtle power of approval to build a personal following, who controlled my time and my job and my money and my friendships, who ordered my life with should’s and must’s while they covered their own private wrongdoing (in the name of God). “Friends,” a lot of them, who were only takers because I was so ready to give, who laid unfair claims on me by their unending neediness (in the name of God). Because I was absolutely sincere in my intentions, no one shook me and said “Wake up, girl!” But the time came when the pressure became too great and could no longer be contained neatly. A family member intervened. “This is abuse,” she said, and my façade began to crack.

Over a number of months after that, I began to realize that not only was the present situation abusive, but also that I had permitted, again and again, unreasonable and unhealthy demands to be made on my life. I discovered that Christian women—mothers, wives, friends, employees, members of a faith community—can and must establish boundaries to protect themselves from destructive relationships.

It may be hard for some people to reconcile the teachings of Jesus about love and forgiveness and self-sacrifice with the necessity to preserve one’s health and sanity. I know how difficult that can be; I found it so difficult that I missed making the connection for most of my adult life. Our Lord never intended for loving God and loving others to exclude self-care. He told His followers that the two greatest commandments were to love God with all one’s heart and mind and strength, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself. It is very hard, maybe impossible, to love and care for others appropriately unless we have a proper respect for ourselves.

Jesus Himself did not minister non-stop to needy people. One time He told all His disciples to come with Him to a quiet place to take a break; they hadn’t even had time for lunch. People were constantly coming and going—people with genuine needs, people who apparently thought Jesus and the disciples should be meeting those needs. (Seeing Jesus’ crew leaving in a boat, the people hurried on foot from the surrounding villages, and beat them to their remote resting spot—but that’s another story.) And once, the Scripture tells us, Jesus was tired from a long walk and sat wearily by a well while His disciples went to a nearby city to buy groceries. So Jesus was not at all insensitive to His own needs or those of His followers. May I put it bluntly? Jesus did not teach His followers to be stupid.

The Apostle Paul echoes Jesus’ teaching. He says, “Husbands ought to love their wives as they love their own bodies. For a man who loves his wife actually shows love for himself. No one hates his own body but feeds and cares for it, just as Christ cares for the church.” (Ephesians 5:28, 29) Here Paul makes the simple assumption that people (women as well as men) need to care for themselves in even the most intimate and impelling of human relationships. It is just expected. Permitting ourselves to be manipulated by others into caring for them, not along with but instead of caring for ourselves, is not Jesus’ way.

So I am learning to tell myself the truth—the hardest person with whom I must face the truth—and it is a journey not yet complete. Although the quote is from Shakespeare rather than Scripture, it is nonetheless accurate: “This above all: to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.”

Marjorie

Scripture quotation is taken from The Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. United States of America. All rights reserved.
The quote is by one of Shakespeare's characters in Hamlet.