Why being offended is causing most of our suffering

 It is a beautiful Friday in January.  The sun is shining and the chickens and ducks are all talking outside.  We had rain a few days ago so the gravel driveway has its low spots full of water, which the ducks love.  They swim in it as if it were their own special pond.  so fun to watch.

I woke up this morning later than normal because Bruce and I watched TV until late in the evening, so he was already gone when I came into the kitchen to make my coffee, then I headed into the dining room to do my morning journaling.  We had gone to a doctors appointment yesterday and then went to visit one of our boys in his new apartment. I was writing about a family that I had the pleasure of speaking with in the waiting room of the office. It was a grandmother, her grandson and then her daughter walked in.  The grandmother was not feeling well and her age had made it very difficult for her to walk into the office without the help of her grandson.  I was watching how carefully he took care of this dear lady as he was getting her to lower herself into the chair two seats down from me.  Then he brought her a water bottle and she praised him for thinking of her.  It was such a sweet moment and all I could do was watch them with what must have seemed like a goofy smile on my face.  She was so nice about my attention to her situation and didn't give me any looks of frustration so I started up a conversation telling her how kind her grandson was and asked her how she was doing.  She told me that she lives with her daughter and grandson and they take such good care of her.  Her grandson introduced himself and then her daughter walked in.  She had her hair in a wrap and looked concerned for her mom but very kind and I introduced myself.  When she spoke she had an accent and I asked her about it.  Yes, I'm a nosey little thing. She told me that she has always lived in the states but she had been home schooled and was raised with what she called the king's speech, which explained her slight accent.  We got to talking about how she had learned 5 different languages and how she had hoped to learn 8 but didn't quite get there.  I can barely remember a person's name so that was fascinating to me.  As we were talking about her mom took such care with her education I heard myself say that education had not been a very important part of my upbringing but that I had been raised to make sure everything was pretty, kept a pretty home, made sure I was pretty and made sure people saw my life in a way that made me seem acceptable.  She looked at me as if I had just swallowed a fish.  Lol! and then said, "really!".  Honestly I didn't even realize I had said it until it popped out of my mouth, and then it dawned on me how true my statement had actually been.  As that moment sunk in I was almost shocked by it and my mind started to process the information.  Had I never thought about it?  Maybe I had, but not in that way?

I have had the conversation with my husband, even recently, that I was so grateful that he saw me as beautiful even without makeup.  I have always been a bit of a black sheep in my family with how I am a nature girl and don't care about fancy things.  I drive an old rusty jeep that has no AC and I live on a farm with chickens, ducks, rabbits, and quail. I grow food and have a house packed to the gills with stuff that I love because each thing tells a story.  I love the story.  I have a life that is full of stories.  Even if the story is not a very pleasant one I can always seem to find a reason to keep it close to me for whatever bit of love I can find in it.  

I have found that in my life I can frustrate people because I talk a lot.  I like to analyze my ideas out loud, it seems.  When I say something I listen while I speak and I learn.  Not always the best way to do things.  I never ever want to say anything that will make someone feel bad.  I think we all have that in common.  But we inevitably offend without meaning to.  So.... my question to anyone reading this is, why don't we realize that if a person you love is talking to you and something they say offends you, maybe they didn't mean to.  Don't we realize that people who love us would never intentionally hurt us?  We have all said something we wish we could take back.  We all know someone who just says something off the top of their head for whatever reason.  We have all gone through pain in our life that at times makes us the crazy person who puts our foot in it.  Why don't we just say to ourselves, "I know they love me and don't mean to make me feel bad so I'm going to just give them a pass because maybe they are going through something that I don't know about"?  I have had times where I go to a gathering and then spend the next several days replaying everything I said with the concern that I may have made someone unhappy.  I've been the person who has listened to my mother in law say something and when she left cried because I thought she was telling me I was not good enough.  But I've also been the person who sat down with her many years later when she was dying of leukemia and listened to her talk about how she didn't know what she did wrong and how much she loved her children.  We are living in a culture of being continually offended.  We have got to stop thinking this way and realize that everyone in the world is hurting and hurting people hurt people.  Until we understand that and work to stop being so offended things are going to keep getting worse.  God created all of us out of love.  He is love.  We are HIS CREATION therefore... WE ARE LOVE.  Don't let the ego mind lie to you.  It lives with the idea that each person is out to protect themselves because that is the only way to survive.  In truth, the only way we are going to heal and become a strong and beautiful world is to do each and everything with an intention of love.  Seeing the loving being that God created in each and every person deep down inside them is the goal to overcoming the dark energy you feel in the world right now.  We need to raise our energy to that of love and work with the idea that everyone was created out of love and is suffering because we aren't seeing that precious person correctly.  We all need to practice forgiveness and understand that everything we put out comes back.  If you put out anger you will get back anger.  If you put out fear you will get back fear.  Karma's law is like a magnet.  Put out love and get back love. I have not mastered this but I know it to be true.  I have a ways to go to realize I don't need to feel hurt by someone that I know loves me.  My prayer is that the rest of the world will one day learn this with me.