Hello everyone! This will be my final blog of 2024. What a revelation year – revelation about myself, others, and my purpose! My understanding of love has matured. My understanding of who and what is and is not my responsibility has come sharply into focus. My understanding of myself and my purpose is sharper and clearer in December 2024 than it has ever been in my entire life! Distractions are no more! I will not beg for life’s crumbs and nor will crumbs be served at my table to others. I know Whose and who I am, and I will not go back! I no longer serve lies and confusion. I am too much for some people. I am okay with that fact. I talk too much for some people. I am also okay (and laugh) with that fact. I pray they will be free of their insecurity one day. They are doing what they know and coping the only way they know how to cope. I have no idea what traumas they have endured – those they have admitted to themselves, and those they have not. I forgive them. I will not join them in their confusion and manipulation. Do not look for me to join you in your pit of misery in 2025 – I will offer you a hand to climb out if you will only take it. This is love. Love is neither an enabler nor a doormat.
In 2024, I have learned there is there is no confusion in love! There is also no love in confusion! The two are not synonymous, they are opposites. Confusion can only breed confusion. Love can only breed love. In 2025, if people come to me in confusion and attempt to pull me into confusion and the merry-go-round drama it creates, they will not sit at my table, nor will they have a seat in any front row of my life. I will be kind and compassionate. I can love them and not be close to them. Loving people and being choosy about who gets access to you can be synonymous. Christendom has for too long taught otherwise and invited confusion both into the Church and into people’s individual lives. I know this because I too thought I could be close friends with absolutely everyone – even people walking in absolute confusion who brought nothing but confusion into my mind and heart. The truth is – you can’t be friends with everyone who presents themselves to you. Some people are not friends, they are snakes. Wolves in sheep’s clothing are still wolves. Pigs in jewelry and lipstick are still pigs. Confusion is still confusion, no matter what clothes it wears or how good it looks. Confusion will never be love.
I hear you thinking out loud, “Okay Elizabeth, that’s all well and good. However, what does confusion look and sound like? How will I know it’s confusion and not love?”
Here are a few examples that summarize the look, feel, and sound of confusion:
1) Someone knowingly asks you to act in a deceptive manner and/or say untrue things about someone else. Any form of deception is an attempt to bring confusion or what I will call Confusion 101.
2) Someone knowingly tells you something about yourself that is not true, tries to you question your sanity or abilities, and/or tells you how you do everything wrong or not the “right way.” These are attempts to confuse (and control) you, not help you. These are attempts to degrade you and make them feel better about themselves. This is Confusion 101.
3) You are told, “You know how I am, you must except that” or “I’m not going to change, you know that so why is this a big deal.” When you are told you must accept an unrepentant person’s actions and that it is “not a big deal”, this is confusion and manipulation. You can’t control that person, and you don’t have to accept their treatment or abuse, and you can leave their company– all these truths can be synonymous.
4) Extramarital affairs are symptoms of confusion and greater heart issues in both parties. As a former participant in two affairs with addicts, I was never more confused and drowning in deeper heart issues than while in those affairs. I pray for those men, and I had to repent, and work out my own heart issues and confusion.
5) Confused men and women do not know what they want; they are miserable, and they like company. People who traffic in confusion will keep you spinning around in their saga if you allow them to do so. Cut the cord. Get off their social media. Take them off your social media. Remove that contact from your phone. Stop texting. Stop calling. Delete that messaging app. Stop chasing confusion.
6) Any attempt to abuse you (physical, emotional, mental, financial or spiritual abuse), control you, manipulate you, and traumatize you, then draw you close and pretend to love you is an act of confusion and pure evil. This is trauma bonding and trauma bonding is confusion on steroids.
7) Co-Dependency burdens you with a lot of confusion – confusion about how you really feel, what you want, what you don’t want, and who you are as well as control and manipulation issues. Please find a CoDA (Co-Dependents Anonymous) group in 2025 and start healing. This is the best thing I ever did!
8) Addiction breeds confusion - any kind of addiction. Addicts also confuse (as well as manipulate and control) those they want to love, but don’t know how to love. My heart breaks for addicts, and I will help them get any help they need if they want it. I cannot control them. I will not participate in their confusion nor their addiction. I would caution you against romantic entanglements with addicts because of the confusion (as well as control, manipulation, and pain) they bring into a relationship and to you. You can help an addict without being romantically involved. You can help an addict minus the co-dependency. You can only help an addict who wants help. You cannot coax, trick, manipulate, control, love, or talk an addict into help. You cannot change an addict. They must want help and change for themselves. An addict must repent.
Let the heavy stuff on confusion sit for a minute. If we know what it is, what it looks like, sounds like, and feels like, we can better care for ourselves and others. We can love ourselves and others better– even if this type of love upsets those we are trying to love well.
I want to close out this last blog of 2024 with the definition of real love according to 1st Corinthians 13:4-7 (NIV) – (contrasts to love in parenthesis). In this Love, there is no confusion:
“Love is patient (not a doormat or accommodator), love is kind (not enabling). It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others (abuse, deception, addiction), it is not self-seeking (addiction, abuse), it is not easily angered (abusive), it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil (abuse/deception) but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres (not enables).”
With love,
Elizabeth
I wish you and yours a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Until next year!
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