Love and drawing a line in the sand with your heart

Is it possible to love everyone to the best of your ability and still guard your heart?

In loving people—and perhaps we have a particular person in mind at this point—we can feel challenged and even thwarted in being vulnerable as we would prefer to be.

In giving ourselves to others, it can feel as if we’re giving too much, for a person can take that, and more.  We can feel as if we’re taken advantage of—exploited no less.

There are individuals who engage in exploitative behaviour.  While we’re there, we can check on a few other things: do they lack empathy—across the board I mean; and are they entitled?  Those three “e’s” are crucial in identifying unsafe people.  Finally, do these three “e’s” feature only situationally?  Or are they exploitative of our love, lacking in empathy, and entitled more often than not?  A further qualifier: on the occasions where the three “e’s” feature, are these times damaging to you—in any regard—or are you easily able to recover?  (At this point, please realise that damage done is not a reflection on you; it’s a reflection on them.)

If any of this raises something in us, we can call it a red flag.  It doesn’t mean we can’t love this person, but it does mean our love will need to be fortified.

Loving a challenging person is complex, but still possible, but we’ll need to accept beforehand that it will cost us significant energy and more than the occasional frustration.  Accepting this beforehand, I mean, coming to terms with this, helps a great deal.  Amid the challenges of disappointment, we can continue to be buoyed despite the fact that loving behaviour is hard—as much because it’s not always reciprocated.

I mean, we don’t do our love so it will be returned to us, but those of us who give our safety and vulnerability freely at least want to be safe in our relationships.

And this is a fair expectation.

Those we extend our vulnerability to who trample us will need a fortified form of our giving love.  They will need a special touch of our love that comes with our strength—for we all have it.  This strength I speak of is the awareness of who we’re dealing with—one bitten, twice shy.

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Now, in saying all this, a good thing we can do to begin with is have an honest self-assessment using the prayer of Psalm 139:23-24—acknowledging that God knows everything about us.  We all need a measure of grace apportioned to us.

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Love invites us on a journey of individualised care for each person.  Some difficult people need much grace, whereas some people need more a measure of truth.  Yes, that’s right, we can and indeed do need to love people with and in truth.

The apostle Paul says, “Speak the truth in love,” which means at least to speak kindly, being patient, and committing to being generous in these ways, bringing truth into accord with the larger fold of grace.  Knowing this gives us a bearing in our boundaries for the self-control we need to communicate in ways that protect our heart.

If ever we were to communicate in ways where self-control is lacking, we can know beyond a shadow of a doubt that such an expression is bound to boomerang back at us.  Amazing how our responses can work against us when we didn’t start it.

Knowing this, we ensure the boundary of self-control is in place, not simply for the other person’s benefit, but at the very least for our own benefit.  This is a safe boundary for us as well as them.

Whatever we can be responsible for we’re in control of and that’s an empowered position—for us.  This is what we should encourage in everyone.

Shrewd communication is also about knowing when and how to initiate and when and how to respond.  A safer way of communicating with vexatious individuals is to initiate less and to be very prayerful around response—using in some ways the ‘GREY ROCK’ method.  I’ve found this article helpful.

In saying “love invites us on a journey of individualised care for each person,” we need to acknowledge that some people will require a strategy and tactics that underpin and support that strategy.  The blessings that such people provide to us is they sharpen us.  They’re instruments that God uses to train us in a divine wisdom that the world does not know.

Did you see what I did with the previous two sentences: I showed you the upside of a less-than-desirable situation.  There is something we can take away in our loving every other person.  Some are easy to love, and they love well themselves.

Don’t be too concerned if it’s taking you a while to learn to love a person who is difficult to love. Provided they’re not a sociopath, we can let our experience guide us.

When love is given or received it’s respectful.  Disrespect forces boundaries upon love.

** Acknowledgement and thanks to Monica who inspired the article and provided help with the title.