Coffee Hour @ Chicklit Power: Loving the Unlovable

Loving the Unlovable-Step 10

Coffee Hour @ Chicklit Power...

Ah, it’s so good to be sharing this time with you. I can’t believe this is the last of this series. I’ve so enjoyed sharing some of my innermost feelings as they relate to loving the unlovable and/or difficult people in our lives. I hope you had a chance to write the three things that you feel you are missing from the first person on your list. Grab your coffee and come on in for the rest of Step 10.

We have almost completed this process, at least for our first person. Picture a package wrapped with pretty paper. What is it missing? The bow, the finishing touches that make the package look even more beautiful. For us ladies, it’s all about the packaging, right?

It’s funny; as I was rewriting this series, and in this very moment of concluding with this step, I was suffering from an emotional hangover after a blowup with my husband. It’s amazing how that guy jumps on and off my list! :) Do you ever have that happen to you? I guess it’s a great reminder that every one of these steps can work as tools for a healthy marriage, too, at least our side of it!
Okay, sorry about that mini detour there.

This final part of Step 10 is rather mind boggling because of its simplicity, and yet, its simplicity casts a brilliant ray of understanding, freeing us from so many things within us. Those things that we feel are missing from the other person can be ours, even with that unlovable/difficult person! Did you notice what you just read? “With” and not “from”! Let me explain this principle inspired by my Courage to Change devotional.

To give what we think we’re missing, we have to become what we want to attract! This is Step 10!

Friend, we don’t need to wait for the unlovable person in our lives to give us these three things that are actual needs within us. We only need to realize that we get back what we give! What we need may not come from that unlovable and/or difficult person we’re dealing with but when we give what we feel we are missing from that person on our list to others, there is this guarantee that comes with it: Others will respond to our changes!

So as I rewind the emotional hangover I’ve felt many times with my husband, this step squeezes my heart with conviction, not condemnation but conviction. I usually want understanding and affirmation and respect from him and when I’m demanding of these things, I, in no way, show him any of these things that I need!

Looking back to the three things I needed from my mom, laughter, kindness and understanding, I can’t help but get goose bumps from the inside out as my needs collide with the revelation of giving what I’m wanting!

I’d like to say I guarantee that your unlovable will change, but that would be a false proclamation and contradict every step we’ve walked through. We can’t change anyone but ourselves. When we continue to stay in our lane, and in our own emotional car, there are a few really good side effects that follow, the first of which is better self-esteem. That one side effect alone can aid in the unpacking process as well as keeping the emotional trunk clean.

I can share, however, that I did have a happy ending with
the one who God used to write these ten steps: my biological                                My mom whom I
mother who as you read this is dancing up in heaven and waiting                    learned to love with all
for me! Oh, how I love and miss her!                                                                           my heart

Fellow sojourner, let’s commit to practicing these ten steps together. The very worst that will happen is that you and I will become someone we want to be, someone we learn to love as He loves us. Thanks so much for walking through this series with me. You have no idea how you’ve blessed me.


Loving the unlovable,

Evinda