I read a post on Facebook the other day asking when it is the proper time to give up on someone. The writer was asking about a person who had an addiction issue and has been in and out of rehab about once a year for six or seven years. But the question just really struck me hard. “When is it okay to give up on someone?”
My gut answer is never. You may have a friend who is choosing to remain in a dangerous situation (drugs, abuse, etc.), and maybe they’ve been “rescued” several times and returned to the same situation over and over again. It’s difficult to watch, and you don’t want to encourage the harmful behavior, but to give up on someone? I don’t know. It just seem so harsh. How can people overcome these painful things in life if we just give up on them?
You may also have someone in your life with whom the season for that friendship is over. Trying to hold on to a relationship that is no longer in season is like holding on to bad ham salad…It can no longer nourish you, so what are you going to do with it? When it’s time to move on, when people are going different directions and you’re no longer helpful to one another’s journey, it’s okay to let those friendships go. Just do so in love. It’s not that you give up on the person. It’s just that the time for that relationship has passed. You don’t hate them and you don’t wish them ill, you just let them go as God leads.
I have to honestly say, there are several people in my past who I have loved very dearly. But, for whatever reason, they are no longer active participants in my life. I miss some. I still think about others. And there are some that make my heart hurt. But in all these relationships, I’ve don’t think I’ve ever given up on any of the people involved…not even the people that I don’t really “miss.” Even though there are some people with whom I just wasn’t…uhm…compatible, I still wish them well.
Even people who were poisonous to me or who just grated on my nerves. I don’t give up on them because I know how God has changed me, and I know He can do the same for them. I don’t continue to subject myself to bad behavior that could be harmful to me, my family, or even the other person, but I do love them and I do pray for them. Yes, even for my enemies, just as the Bible instructs us to do. It’s not always easy, but everyone has been created by God, so they weren’t always bad; and they have to have something good in them if, for no other reason than, God made them. Life and choices may have made them less than wonderful, but that’s not who they really are.
It hurts to care about some people sometimes. Sometimes, we care more about them than they do themselves. But I pray none of us ever stop caring and that we never just give up on someone because it’s “too hard” to care about them. As the old saying goes, “It’s better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all.” And I think it’s better to love and risk being hurt or called a sucker for punishment than to give up on someone who needs people to believe in them.
I suppose I’m just an optimist. But if that’s a bad thing, then let me be downright terrible. 🙂
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