For When Loving Your Enemy Seems Too Big an Ask

Ask

Who is your enemy or arch nemesis? Maybe a rude neighbor or that &$%! who cut you off in traffic. Or maybe it is a sibling or in-law you can’t seem to forgive. That colleague who wronged you or that friend you always seem to be competing with. Hold their name (or face, if you can bear it) in your mind.

Reflect

Madeleine L’Engle said, “We must bless without wanting to manipulate. Without insisting that everything be straightened out right now. Without insisting that our truth be known. This means simply turning whoever it is we need to bless over to God, knowing that God’s powerful love will do what our own feeble love or lack of it won’t. I have suggested that it is a good prac-tice to believe in six impossible things every morning before breakfast, like the White Queen in Through the Looking Glass. It is also salutary to bless six people I don’t much like every morn-ing before breakfast.” Try blessing your enemy today. How did that make you feel?

Pray

Read today’s blessing again and make it a prayer, with this particular enemy in mind.