"When you are affected by what others think and say about you then they own you"

I am 54 years old and most of my life I have lived by the statement that your reputation is the most important thing about you.  So everything I did was done to impress people and look perfect.  ( There was also another thing going on in my life in that I felt that the only way I could be loved is if I was number 1 in everything that I did, but that is another issue that although happened at the same time was also different and is separate issue that I can talk about at another time.)  

When reputation was king, I was very aware about the ways others would view my actions.  This caused me to not to reach out and be the friend that I needed to be to some because of how that would have been viewed.  I was a lot more concerned with my self righteousness than love for others.  As I have shared about my hurts growing up, several people have told me that they felt the same way also.  I cannot help but think that maybe if I was not so consumed with myself, then I could have reached out and others would not have gotten hurt.  

Another characteristic was the way I reacted to false comments that were made about me.  I learned early in life that fighting would not change anything, but I would still  cut myself off from anyone that I felt that did me wrong.  As I look back, I realize that this was the main reason that I never came to any of the reunions until the 30th.  The main reason that I came then was a promise that I had made to Carol Pace Robertson after the 20th reunion.  (She was working in a school with my wife and had called the house to talk to her about school, but I answered the phone.  She laid into me for over an hour about not coming to the 20th.  Actually that was probably the longest that she had talked to me our whole lives.  The conversation ended with a promise from me that if possible, I would attend the 30th.)  I came fulfilling that promise. 

Also some others things happened to me between the 20th and 30th reunions, as people within churches began to try to orally assassinate me.  I was forced to leave a couple of churches and bounced around until I became involved within relationships and what some call Christianity 101.  

It was about that time that I came across a quote that went something like this, "When you are affected by what others think and say about you then they own you". There is another cliché that I have quoted often that says that we need to lived loved and that will allow us to love others.

For me, I knew that I needed to let Jesus love me and to realize that there was nothing that I could do to make Him love me more and there was nothing that I could do that would make Him love me less.  As I have accepted this teaching, I have naturally started loving others more.  

You can see this in the pictures that Dean has taken of me at the reunions.  There was a time when I would not have allowed a picture to be taken of me and another woman because that would lead to people saying that we must be having an affair (I know this because that was the culture that I grew up in).  Now that doesn't bother me like it use to because we are just friends and I and everyone else there knows that nothing could be further from the truth.  (Now I will say something if I feel something is going too far, but still I am not bothered like I used to be.)

It is when I am not affected by what someone else thinks or says that enables me to see their hurts and to reach out and to help them heal their hurts.  I am not there yet, but I am still on this journey.