Don’t worry, this is not a finance lesson.  No short-term, long-term or capital loss carryovers will be mentioned in this blog.  Ever.

Have you lost anything recently?  Weight?  Car keys?  Debit card? Your mind?  Gained anything recently? Weight? Debt? Love? Children?  How do you compare the two?  Is something gained always better than something lost? Do they always go hand in hand?

In the past few months, it seems I have be involved in or aware of many of both.  Loss of life, loss of a relationship, loss of trust, loss of faith.  Gain of a friend, gain of love, gain of confidence, gain of success.  Do you have to have known one to know the other?  Do you have to experience both simultaneously? It sometimes feels that way. We hear things like “what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger”…as if to say that by losing SOMETHING we are gaining strength.  We constantly hear of people who lose a loved one and gain faith in the Lord. Losing one job can mean a new, better opportunity.

Basically, it would appear to be balanced, right?  But what happens when you lose someone or something and you can’t figure out why that’s happening?  What happens when there doesn’t seem to be any good reason for someone to decide they don’t like you.  When someone you love deserts you or puts you down – how do you turn that into something good?

I struggled with this personally a while back.  Someone I loved hurt me immensely. I’m talking about that kind of gut-wrenching ache that makes you feel physically ill.  (Please, y’all, it was NOT my husband…he’s a total gentleman and I’d lose my mind if he did that to me…and change my blog name!  LOL)  I’m not a revengeful person.  I don’t delight in getting back at people.  I don’t like for someone to know they “got to” me either.  I don’t like confrontation. All in all, I’m a doormat, I suppose. I would much rather just go on and keep being nice and friendly and civil instead of causing drama or calling someone out. My methods solve NOTHING. My methods breed agreement. By not saying anything or acting no different, I am saying “YES PLEASE, TREAT ME HOWEVER YOU WANT AND TALK ABOUT ME ALL YOU WANT AND I’LL JUST BE HERE WITH A SMILE THE NEXT TIME I SEE YOU.” I decided I had to try something different with this situation. So I prayed. I forgave. And I was silent. I can’t bring myself to reach out to say “why?” or “how?” or even a call to say “I forgive you”. I’m just too hurt. I have forgiven. But I can’t comply with someone saying hurtful things about me and not apologizing. Now, I don’t need an apology in order to forgive. (That’s per Jesus, y’all.) But I believe that if you’re sorry you say it. If you aren’t, you don’t. So if you don’t, you aren’t. (Now, that was kinda math equation-ish there, so I’m sorry about that.) I have not received any type of apology….not even one of those that says “I’m sorry you were offended” (which is not really an apology, don’t ever do that!)…not “I was mad, I didn’t mean it”…not “you didn’t hear me right”….  So, I’m left to think it was intentional, it was said because it was felt and it was said without regard to my feelings.

So, very long story short. I’m learning that lesson of forgiving when someone is not sorry. It is not a lesson that was up there that I wanted to learn, mind you. But sometimes class is boring, right?

x + y = z

x = someone mistreats you, and they aren’t sorry for it

y = you are hurt

z= you forgive them anyway

Class dismissed.