When someone has hurt you, the easiest thing to do is hold a grudge and allow your anger to fester within your soul. But loving your enemies doesn’t mean thinking they are nice or justifying their behavior. We are to “hate the sin and love the sinner”. Lewis explains this popular saying, “Christianity does not want us to reduce by one atom the hatred we feel for the cruelty and treachery. We ought to hate them….it does want us to hate them in the same way in which we hate things in ourselves: being sorry that the man should have done such things, and hoping, if it is anyway possible, that somehow, sometime, somewhere he can be cured and made human again.” Every human is created in the image of God. Christ loves a sinful wretch like you; He loves a sinful wretch like me…Even though we have sinned against Him and disobeyed Him countless times, He still loves us. Loving your enemies does not mean they are not subject to punishment. We must still act justly. Lewis addresses this, saying, “If one is allowed to condemn the enemy’s acts, and punish him, and kill him, what difference is left between Christian morality and the ordinary view? All the difference in the world. Remember, we Christians think man …show more content…
August 2013 was the beginning of a long, painful lesson on loving my enemies, the consequences of hatred, and how to forgive. It all started as an aggressive girl who had no leash on her tongue, but quickly escalated to physical assault. I was terrified and hid everything for fear that she would lash out at me. But as the weeks progressed, the physical, verbal, and mental harassment only got worse. Up until the bullying, I really never had to forgive anyone. It was just childish fights with my sister and we both would do the traditional "I 'm sorry...I forgive you. hug, all smiles” talk. But when I was bullied, that was when I was tested. I was tested in my physical response. Would I fight back or would I love them like Jesus would? After I was pulled out of my co-op, that 's when the change in me happened. I closed up. For fear of being hurt again, I shut everyone out. I began to bottle up hatred and resentment toward the bullies and my teacher and managers, who didn’t stand up for me. I was no longer the happy, sweet Caroline. I lost interest in everything, including life. They had taken my life from me and as if that wasn 't bad enough, I now had to live with panic attacks and nightmares. I hated them. My hatred consumed me, it ate me alive and wore on my bones. I hardly slept at night and didn 't care about anything at all…And then, as I was listening to