Do I play the victim in a friendship, am I the sacrifice? Not in the way you would expect. I have noticed that often, I will start out a new friendship by making sacrifices and performing other services that are rare niceties I would not often perform for anyone else. Do I perform to ensure that I will remain in good standing with this friend in question? It is reminiscent of performing well at the beginning of a school semester to get good grades, but then slacking off as the year goes by until you are completely at your wits-end and have given up entirely on ever making that A you had originally worked so hard to receive. How does this happen? I act like I should deserve to be treated respectfully only if I perform, but If I do not perform then I do not deserve to expect to be treated in a just way. I have been trod on allot in past friendships, I am always very frightened of that happening again. Afraid of opening my heart up completely and putting it in someones hand in confidence, trusting they will take care with it, only then to have them drop it and trample it with their own foot. So I perform to hopefully guilt them into treating me in a loving way. Unfortunately what happens when I do this is inevitably I will end up feeling like a victim, like I am being taken advantage of, when really it is my own responsibility to set up boundaries in my friendships so that this will not happen. I am not behaving responsibly, I know that. Change is never easy but always necessary. God help me to change in this.
Hannah's Prayer:
~ My heart rejoices in the Lord; In the Lord my horn is lifted high. My mouth boasts over my enemies, for I delight in your deliverance. There is no one holy like the Lord; there is no one besides you; there is no Rock like our God. Do not keep talking so proudly or let your mouth speak such arrogance, for the Lord is a God who knows and by Him deeds are weighed. The bows of the warriors are broken but those who stumbled are armed with strength...He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap; he sets them with princes and has them inherit a throne of honor. For the foundations of the earth are the Lords; upon them he has set the world.
~He will guard the feet of his saints, but the wicked will be silenced in darkness...
1 Samuel 2 Hannah's Prayer~
