My Place is To Love...

What are you to do when someone you dearly love is continually manipulated by their own extended family members?  When they are hurt time and time again by actions, words, and innuendos that are so self serving that it's obvious to you , but perhaps not so clearly to your loved one?  Perhaps they struggle with the idea that anyone means what they actually say.  There is not always a hidden message tucked neatly away so as to be able to deny devious implications, should they be called out on them. 

I have learned that some battles are not mine to fight.  But the messes that these battles cause are mine to sop up.  The pieces of the broken heart they so masterfully destroy are mine to mend back together.  It's not fair to the person I love--or to me.  It's not fair that people who tell your loved one, to his face, that they love him will continue to make everything in life about themselves--about their needs--and about their desires, always at his expense.  It's not fair, but I've learned that it just IS their way.  Their ways are passive aggressive.  Their ways are unfortunately destructive. 

I pray that God gives me the grace to reach yet another state of forgiveness towards them.  Right now I am stumbling to find it.  Right now all I want to do is protect my loved one. Stand in front of him and take them on because I can see them for who they really are.  But... I can not. It is not my place.  

My place is beside him; to simply and completely love him.