I can’t speak for you, yet I am pretty sure that I am not the only one, who struggles with difficult people. I am struggling right now. I have been struggling with one particular person, since I have known them and it isn’t getting better and I don’t forsee it changing in the near future. Unfortunately, in my circumstance, this person isn’t going anywhere, anytime soon.

Are you in, or have you been in the same or similar situation?

​Although I wrestle and struggle with my feelings, not liking how I feel and not wanting to feel the way I do, I am comforted knowing my feelings are not sin.

Some people never change. We can pray and pray and yet we continue to deal with the same personality and character. Only God can change people. And…He can only work with their hearts and on transformation, with their cooperation. Thank you free will.

So what do you do? What am I to do?

Thank you free will! God in his blessing has given me the free will, to allow Him to work in my heart, to allow him to protect my heart, to allow him to carry my heart, to allow him to hear my heart, to allow him to heal my heart.

Although I wrestle and struggle with my feelings, not liking how I feel and not wanting to feel the way I do, I am comforted knowing my feelings are not sin. I continue to bring these feelings before God, and then rely on Him to carry out the behavior that would honour Him.

Ephesians 4:32 says, “Be kind and compassionate, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you”

My behavior of forgiveness is not about my feelings. I can be kind no matter what. I am kind to a stranger, to a beggar on the street, to my neighbours, without knowing what they have done or who they have hurt. We are kind to people without thinking, because we don’t know their sin. When we know offenses, it helps to think about actions- doing instead of being. Although it usually is, kindness does not have to be, connected to feeling or emotion. Kindness and compassion are responses to the choice of forgiveness, not the feeling of it. They are responses to knowing what God has done for us. When I focus on this, it helps me, because I am wrapped in God’s big hug. He knows the difficult people in my life and has enough love for us all. The struggle is real but God can handle it.