Sherry Sterling

Dear friends,

Relationships can be one of the hardest places to receive and offer grace. Especially when the relationship has broken down. As a psychotherapist, I see the fallout in my office a lot, Lately, I’ve been studying the impact of Narcissistic Parental Alienation. This term describes a process whereby one parent manipulates a child against the other parent. Hurtful stuff.

I imagine we can all remember a time—whether we’ve acted on it or not—when we felt the urge to lash out from hurt, to give back what we’ve gotten, to make sure “they get theirs.” Hurt is so powerful. And, well, hurtful.

It’s natural to want to get that hurtful feeling out of us. The impulse is to toss it back to where we think it came from, like a revved-up game of hot potato. We think it started with them, and should end with them—the problem is, so do they.

It’s easier to see what others have done than to see how we’ve participated in the hurtful exchange. It’s easier to see the other as wrong or bad and insist on our rightness. We can quickly justify our actions, escalating the situation, forgetting what anger does to us.

The psalmist reminds us:

“Do not fret yourself because of evildoers;
do not be jealous of those who do wrong…
Put your trust in the Lord and do good…
Be still before the Lord
and wait patiently for him.
Do not fret yourself over the one who prospers,
the one who succeeds in evil schemes.
Refrain from anger, leave rage alone;
do not fret yourself; it leads only to evil.”

This psalm reassures me. Along with the other readings for today, it reminds me to trust in God, and to wait for him to do his work. It reminds me to focus on the ways God has guided us to be. And it reminds me of the cost to our hearts of fretting. Best to leave this business of dealing with the heart of “the one who succeeds in evil schemes” to God, and let God deal with my heart, too. Our God loves both the one who is fretting and the one who succeeds in evil schemes, and works to redeem both.

My prayer is to trust in God’s redeeming power for me and for those I see as evildoers.

Peace and love,

—Sherry