Almost everyone has been involved with or experienced a toxic relationship at some point in their life. You may be in a toxic relationship right now that has affected you adversely. There are many misunderstandings about the Christian response in such situations.
I was raised in a conservative, Christian home. I was taught to turn the other cheek no matter what the other person said or did. I became more of a doormat, thinking I was a great Christian. The Scriptures are clear that we should love our neighbors, our spouses and even our enemies. So biblically, we should love toxic people.
Love, however, does not mean enable. We can love people by setting healthy boundaries. Many Christians, because of their love and compassion, end up having their boundaries trampled. They love and forgive as they should, but their boundaries are continually violated. On one hand, they show the love of Christ. On the other hand, they feel stressed and anxious because of the internal conflict between forgiveness and allowing unhealthy behavior. God is not an enabler. To enable, in simple terms, means to take away another person’s natural consequence.
Remember that God can use natural consequences to teach and ultimately redeem us. I think many Christians mix up love, compassion and mercy and end up enabling toxic people. When we enable a poisonous person, we take away their responsibility for their behavior. We can get in the way of what God wants to do in their life. Everyone is affected by toxic people.
…which leads to the question of HOW to love without enabling.
Eye opening article.
Carol: Thanks so much for you comment. Your question is such a valid one and it leads me back to something we have posted numerous times! Because ‘perfect love casts out all fear’, then if we can understand how enabling (co-dependency) works through our fears, then we should be able to understand how to fear less and love more!! Here’s how it has worked for me (Gerri):
Letting Go
To let go doesn’t mean to stop caring
It means I can’t do it for someone else
To let go is not to cut myself off
It is the realization that I cannot control another
To let go is not to enable
But to allow learning from natural consequences
To let go is to admit powerlessness
Which means the outcome is not in my hands
To let go is not to try and change or blame another
I can only change myself
To let go is not to care for
But to care about
To let go is not to fix
But to be supportive
To let go is not to judge
But to allow another to be a human being
To let go is not to be in the middle arranging all the outcomes
But to allow others to affect their own outcomes
To let go is not to be protective
It is to permit another to face reality
To let go is not to deny
But to accept
To let go is not to nag, scold, or argue
But to search out my own shortcomings and to correct them
To let go is not to adjust everything to my desires
But to take each day as it comes
To let go is not to criticize and regulate anyone
But to try to become what I dream I can be
To let go is not to regret the past
But to grow and live for the future
To let go is to fear less
And love more
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