I have spent the majority of my life trying to make people happy but I was not happy at all. When we do something for someone or give them a gift it is suppose to be given out of Love and from the heart. Don’t get me wrong their were many times that I did give because I wanted to and it made me happy. But most of the time I just did or gave simply to make people happy and that was not right it made me angry and resentful. Then when I needed something and nobody helped me I was so angry and thought all all the times I helped them. That was my was my own fault. I was to scared of making people mad at me. I seriously thought the whole world was always mad at me about something. I had surgery to remove 2 large kidney stones that were stuck and would not come out I was in excruciating pain and I found a awesome Dr. that did surgery immediately to remove them when all the other Dr.’s would only give me more pain medicine and not help fix the problem well anyways, it was late at night when he finished the surgery and I felt so guilty because I knew he wanted to get home to his family and the FIRST thing I said after surgery was, are you mad at me? Well of course he was not mad at me he was doing his job. I thought if I did not do EXACTLY what everybody wanted me to do they would hate me. It is a very serious problem I had and I did a lot of stuff I can never take back simply because I could not say NO. It was not healthy for me or the person I could not say no to because deep down I was the one that was mad at them. Oh the stuff I am learning in my old age!! If only I had known all this when I was 11. I am finally at a point where I know when to say no and when to say yes. There are definitely times when we need to help others but we need to do it out of Love not because we are afraid they will be mad if we say no or not at this time. And if someone gets mad at us because we can’t do something then that is their choice not our problem to worry about. The other person I will never say No to is God!! I am currently at a point in my life where I have to pray before I agree to do anything because if God does not want me to do it then I do not want to do it and also I want to make sure I am doing it out of Love and not expecting something in return.
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You are not alone with feeling this way. A lot of us feel we need to do for others so they aren’t mad. I always try to do things out of love for others, but I get cut short sometimes and I too am guilty for feeling like you use to feel. Praise God we can over come even these small obstacles.
Proud of you hun!
Lately, I am learning a lot about boundaries and holding the line firmly to not let people cross them. I keep having to remind myself that this battle is not between myself and the other person, but it’s against the devil. I feel like this, maybe, kind of ties in with what you are experiencing. When we set a boundary and hold firm, it’s really not our responsibility how the other person reacts to our action of setting that boundary. Not that it wont feel yucky for us at times (like if they get mad about it). My favorite verse in the Bible is James 1:2-4 and I love the way the Message version says it “Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way.” Your “faith-life” is being shown beautifully in these challenges! xoxo