When doing the right thing starts to feel like doing yourself wrong.
I'm getting really tired of being the bigger person.
There. I said it.
I'm tired of being told to extend grace, to give people the benefit of the doubt, to consider their perspectives, to rise above my circumstances, to forgive, forget, move forward, and somehow find the strength to smile while doing it. I'm tired of being expected to make everyone else comfortable while quietly swallowing the things that have made me uncomfortable.
And I'm especially tired of feeling like my anger, disappointment, and hurt are somehow evidence that I'm the problem. Because apparently, having big feelings means I need to work harder at managing them. But what about the people who caused those feelings in the first place? When do they have to do the work? And when, exactly, do I get to stop being the bigger person?
Recently, I found myself in a situation I desperately wanted to avoid. I had been asked to return to a place where I had experienced considerable hurt. A place associated with people who had treated me poorly, relationships that had deteriorated, and circumstances I was still trying to make peace with.
I didn't want to go. Not because I was trying to punish anyone, make a statement, or hold some dramatic grudge while waiting for the opportunity to make everyone miserable. I simply didn't want to put myself back into an environment that had already cost me so much emotionally.
I thought that was a reasonable boundary. Apparently, it wasn't quite that simple.
There were people there who wanted to see me. People I cared about. People whose accomplishments deserved to be celebrated. And I was reminded that I needed to separate my feelings about the people who had hurt me from my feelings about the people who hadn't.
Fair enough. I understood the distinction. What I couldn't understand was why acknowledging that distinction automatically meant I had to go. Why couldn't both things be true? Why couldn't I love and support those people AND choose not to return to a place that caused me pain? Why did demonstrating my love require me to put myself in an uncomfortable situation? Why was my absence going to mean more than everything I had already given?
Because here's the thing: I had already shown up. I had already done the work. I had already supported the people involved through difficult circumstances. But apparently, that wasn't enough. There was still another expectation, another opportunity to demonstrate grace, another chance to prove I was capable of rising above it all.
And if I didn't? Well, then I was the one disappointing everybody.
Funny how that works.
I believe in grace. I really do. I've spent an enormous amount of time thinking, praying, writing, and talking about it. I've written an entire book about finding Christ in the unfinished, uncomfortable, messy places of our lives. I believe people deserve second chances. I believe in forgiveness. I believe we are called to love people who are difficult to love. And I believe Jesus expects us to become better than our circumstances.
But somewhere along the way, I've started wondering whether we've confused extending grace with abandoning ourselves.
Because there's a difference between choosing to forgive someone and being told you need to forgive them. There's a difference between reconciliation and forced interaction. There's a difference between extending someone the benefit of the doubt and being expected to ignore the evidence of how they've treated you. And there's a difference between being the bigger person and being the person who always has to bend.
Grace is a gift. It shouldn't become a debt we're forced to pay to people who have hurt us.
I can forgive someone without wanting a relationship with them. I can wish someone well without wanting to share a room with them. I can recognize someone's humanity without pretending their behavior didn't affect mine. And I can love someone without giving them unlimited access to me.
Why do we make that so complicated? Why does protecting our peace so often get interpreted as refusing to forgive? Why does choosing not to engage become evidence of bitterness?
Sometimes the most gracious thing I can do is walk away without saying everything I'm thinking. And believe me, there's usually a LOT I'm thinking.
But here's where this whole experience really got to me. It wasn't simply about the place I didn't want to go. It was about trying to explain why I didn't want to go and feeling like my explanation wasn't enough.
I didn't need anyone to hate the people who had hurt me. I didn't need someone to validate every conclusion I'd reached or agree with every decision I wanted to make. I didn't even need someone to tell me I was right. I just wanted someone to say, "I understand why that would be hard for you."
That's it.
Maybe followed by, "I know you care about those people, and I understand why you don't want to put yourself back in that situation."
What an extraordinary difference those words would have made.
Instead, I found myself discussing everyone else's perspective. How the people who wanted to see me might feel. How someone who had hurt me deserved a conversation. How I needed to extend the same grace and benefit of the doubt I so desperately wished others would extend to me.
And perhaps there's truth in some of that. I'm not suggesting there isn't. But could we acknowledge my pain before we start explaining everyone else's? Could we sit with the fact that something hurt me before we turn it into another lesson about how I need to improve? Could we allow me to be angry without immediately treating that anger as a character flaw?
Because sometimes I don't need a solution, a sermon, or another opportunity for personal growth.
I need someone to sit beside me in the hurt without immediately trying to move me out of it.
And I think that's what has been missing. Not advice. Not perspective. Acknowledgment.
I've been thinking a lot about how often I feel responsible for making difficult situations better for everyone else. Someone is disappointed? I need to make it right. Someone is uncomfortable? I need to extend grace. Someone has hurt me? I need to consider their perspective. Someone wants something from me that I'm not emotionally prepared to give? I need to rise above my feelings and do it anyway.
And if I resist, suddenly I'm being difficult. I'm holding on to contention. I'm allowing my emotions to get the better of me. I'm failing to be the person I claim I want to become.
It's an exhausting way to live. Especially when you're already exhausted.
And lately, I am.
I'm exhausted from trying to do the right thing, from trying to be kind, from trying to trust God, and from trying to find meaning in circumstances that seem determined to knock the wind out of me. I'm exhausted from feeling like I have to prove my goodness through my willingness to endure things that hurt.
And I'm beginning to wonder whether the constant expectation to be the bigger person has created a version of me that everyone else finds easier to live with, but that I'm finding increasingly difficult to sustain.
Because the bigger person is supposed to smile, understand, forgive, and let it go. He's supposed to take the high road, make the first move, offer the olive branch, and somehow find satisfaction in knowing he did the right thing, regardless of what it cost him.
But who takes care of the bigger person? Who notices when he's tired? Who gives him the benefit of the doubt? Who extends grace to him when he doesn't have anything left to give?
Despite everything I was feeling, I went.
I sat through the performance. I celebrated the work. I applauded the people I'd helped bring to that stage. And when it was over, I left.
I walked past people who wanted to stop and talk. I smiled, waved, blew kisses, offered congratulations, and told them how wonderful they had been. And I kept walking. Not because I didn't love them or wasn't proud of them, but because I had reached the limit of what I could emotionally manage that afternoon.
I needed to leave. So I did.
And then, almost immediately, I started worrying about what everyone must have thought. Did they think I was rude? Did they think I was angry? Did they think I didn't care? Were people talking about how I had walked right past them? Had I somehow managed to make the situation worse by trying to protect myself?
Good grief!
I had done the thing I didn't want to do, and now I was worried I hadn't done it well enough. Apparently, merely showing up wasn't sufficient. I needed to show up, be gracious, be warm, be available, exchange pleasantries, offer hugs, make everyone feel appreciated, and leave them with absolutely no reason to question my intentions.
In other words, I needed to perform.
And the irony of having to perform emotional well-being in a theatre was not lost on me.
I had spent the afternoon watching a performance, only to realize I was expected to give one of my own.
Except I didn't have it in me. And what makes this even harder is that this isn't the only thing I'm dealing with right now. There's so much other crap happening in my life that I'm barely hanging on by a thread as it is. Showing up that afternoon was almost more than I could manage, and yet I pushed myself to go anyway. I smiled. I waved. I offered congratulations. I gave what little I had left to give.
And I'm trying to learn that maybe that was enough.
Afterward, I reached out to several people to congratulate them. Very few responded. And I'll admit, my first reaction wasn't particularly charitable. I had spent all this time worrying about disappointing people who supposedly wanted so badly to see me, and now I was sitting there wondering whether my presence had mattered at all.
It was tempting to turn their silence into proof that I had been right not to want to go. But that's not particularly fair, either.
I don't know why people didn't respond. Maybe they were busy, exhausted, eating, or celebrating. Maybe they appreciated my message and simply didn't know what to say. And maybe some of them genuinely wanted to see me. I can acknowledge all those possibilities.
But here's what I'm finally beginning to understand: I shouldn't need their silence to justify my boundaries any more than I should need their gratitude to justify my sacrifices.
My decision to protect myself shouldn't depend on whether someone else appreciates it. And my willingness to love people shouldn't require me to continually prove it.
Both things can be true. Imagine that.
I've been wrestling with God a lot lately. Not in some beautifully poetic, spiritually uplifting way. More in a "What the hell are You doing, and how much longer is this supposed to last?" kind of way.
I've been angry, discouraged, resentful, and tired of feeling like every difficult experience is another heavenly examination I haven't quite figured out how to pass. Be more patient. Be more forgiving. Be more understanding. Be more Christlike.
More. More. More.
What if, for just a moment, I don't have any more to give? Does that mean I'm failing?
I don't think so. At least, I'm trying to believe it doesn't.
Because when I look at the life of Christ, I don't see someone who demanded that hurting people become emotionally presentable before He offered them compassion. I see someone who wept with people, recognized suffering, withdrew when He needed solitude, and loved deeply while still experiencing anger, sorrow, betrayal, and disappointment.
Jesus didn't pretend those things weren't real. And I don't believe He expects me to pretend, either.
Perhaps becoming more like Christ isn't always about finding the strength to walk back into every painful situation with a smile on my face. Perhaps sometimes it's about learning to love without resentment, forgive without pretending, and establish boundaries without guilt. Perhaps it's about recognizing that compassion is not something we're only supposed to extend outward.
We need it, too.
And perhaps the person I've been most reluctant to extend grace to lately is myself.
I can be angry AND faithful. I can be hurt AND forgiving. I can love people AND need distance from them. I can recognize another person's perspective AND still believe my own experience deserves consideration. I can be disappointed in someone's behavior AND wish them well. I can want to become a better person AND be exhausted by the constant expectation that I demonstrate it.
And I can be the bigger person AND decide that being the bigger person doesn't always mean showing up.
That's the And I've been struggling to live in.
Because for too long, I've treated these things as mutually exclusive. If I'm angry, I must not have forgiven. If I'm setting boundaries, I must not be extending grace. If I'm unwilling to reconcile, I must be holding a grudge. If I disappoint someone, I must have failed them.
But none of those conclusions is necessarily true. Sometimes two seemingly contradictory things are simply part of the same complicated human experience. And sometimes the most difficult act of grace is allowing ourselves to exist in that contradiction without rushing to resolve it for everyone else's comfort.
I don't want to become bitter. I don't want to spend my life keeping score of who hurt me, who apologized, who reached out, and who didn't. I don't want anger to become the defining characteristic of my relationships, and I certainly don't want to stop believing in grace.
But I also don't want to keep confusing goodness with self-abandonment. I don't want to measure my worth by how much discomfort I'm willing to tolerate. I don't want to keep proving my love by showing up in places where my heart is begging me not to go.
And I don't want the people closest to me to feel they have to agree with every emotion I experience. I just want them to understand that those emotions are real. That my hurt deserves acknowledgment, my boundaries deserve consideration, and sometimes I need compassion more than correction.
I want to believe that being a good person shouldn't require me to continually make myself smaller so everyone else can feel better.
Maybe the goal isn't to be the bigger person after all. Maybe the goal is to be a whole person. A person who can love and hurt, forgive and remember, offer grace and establish boundaries, show up for others and, occasionally, choose to show up for himself. A person who doesn't have to earn understanding by first demonstrating how understanding he can be.
Because I'm beginning to think that being the bigger person isn't nearly as important as being an honest one.
And today, the honest truth is that I'm tired. I'm hurt. I'm angry. I'm still figuring out what forgiveness looks like. And I'm still trying to follow Jesus through all of it.
But I am done believing that the price of being Christlike is pretending I haven't been wounded.
I can extend grace without erasing myself. I can love people without surrendering my peace. And I can be a good person without always having to be the bigger one.
Maybe that's enough.
For today, it has to be.
