How do you love those you just don't feel like loving?

So, not everybody is going to like you.

That is the gut wrenching truth.  But it's especially hard when someone doesn't like you, and you just don't understand why.  And there's not a single thing you can do about it.  Except love them.

Take my neighbor...

At one time we were friends.  We hung out, talked, laughed, confided in each other.  Our boys are the same age and enjoyed playing together.  Then her attitude toward me changed.  She became distant.  When I asked her about it, she just kinda blew me off.  Well fast forward a few weeks and there was an incident in the neighborhood where her other son smarted off to me and blah, blah, blah.  I confronted her, she insulted me and my 9-year-old son and acted like a total teenager.

And we haven't spoken since.  That was almost one year ago.  I teach her child at school.  He is precious.

This whole thing may not make one bit of sense, but the point is something happened to change her opinion of me, and she turned hateful. And I don't know why.

God commands us to love each other.  I don't feel like loving her.  What's a girl to do?

After tons of prayer and thought, here is what I have come up with...

 I am going to pray for her.  Everyday.  Every time I look at her house.  Which is right across the street from mine.  Ironically, once upon a time she prayed for me.  She texted me on the first day of school last year that she was praying for me that day.  (Where's your Christian talk now, sister?)

I am going to pray that her heart is softened and that she feels God's love and grace.  I believe hurt people hurt people.  Maybe something is so out of control in her life, she needs to create drama that she thinks she can control.

I am going to pour love into her son.  He is welcome at our house anytime, and I want him to know that.  I love having him in class at school.  He makes me laugh; he is quite the character.  I want him to see that no matter what goes on between his mother and I (God knows what she has said about me in their home), it will never affect how I treat him.

I am not going to allow her view of me to affect how I feel about myself.  Been there, done that.  With this situation.  Questioning what I've done wrong, if I've handled things incorrectly.  You can drive yourself crazy doing that.

The whole thing is totally out of my control and I've asked God why.  Why, if someone is going to dislike me so strongly, does it have to be in a way that I just don't understand?

He didn't answer me.

But He told me in the bible to love.  So, even though, everything in me wants to call her names and curse her name and pump my fist at her, I am going to choose to love.  Because love is a choice.

A choice we all have to make.  Sometimes is it easy.  Other times not so much.

I love what Don Miller said on his blog today:

"So here’s the truth: God doesn’t think your crap is awesome, He doesn’t think your arrogance is beautiful and okay, but He has ten times the patience with you than your friends. Your whining and complaining and relapses into old sins are not okay with Him, but they don’t affect His love for you. He likes you more than your friends like you. He just keeps driving through the mileposts of eternity, trying to distract you with a song or a question or a smile.

That comforts me. And just knowing how much God likes you makes me like you more, too. And hopefully the fact of His love makes you like me more as well."

Here's the deal.

God loves my neighbor.  Therefore, I will love her, too. 

Just keepin' it real.