God give me eyes to see the problem is me

That moment when you recognize: The person who wronged you is now being wronged BY you.

You discover a rupture in the membrane between pain and rage.

It’s one hell of a cocktail now.

It used to be that you hurt most of the time.

Now, all of the time, you’re dreaming up ways you can make her hurt.

It used to be that you meekly paid for his sins against you.

Now, you fantasize about ways to make him pay.

If you at least keep a guest room for God in your soul, you will eventually awaken to how you are slowly changing into the person who wronged you.

Our thoughts become us. The more you think about the person who did you wrong and the more you think about the wrong they did, the more like that person you become. You focus so much on the worst features of that person that you become a monstrous caricature of those features.

You arm yourself with your anger.

You know you’re fooling yourself. You know that no matter how ferocious your moral firepower, he will always be out of your range. You will never inflict the kind of damage on him that he inflicted on you.

Your meting out justice will barely tickle her and it will never satisfy you.

Rest assured: You will do damage. You will injure, maim, and take your pound of flesh as you fire away at him.

You will hit someone: Innocent bystanders.

You will injure your children, your friends, and your spouse.

You will injure your neighbors and total strangers you meet in the grocery store and on the road.

You will become to them the person who wronged you in the first place. You will transfer your pain–and eventually your anger–to them like a virus.

And then you yourself will die. Still raging, still unsatisfied, still wounding everyone around you.

God, give me eyes to see the problem is me.

God, give me faith that gives me the hope of love so great that I have the superpower to forgive any person who wrongs me.

God, bless and keep my enemies and protect them from my wrath.