Where do you draw the line?

When do you say ‘ENOUGH’ to those people who use you as an emotional punching bag?

We all have had people in our lives who, for lack of a better word, were emotional vampires, sucking the life out of us through their manipulation and games. Seems like I’ve written about this before. I write about it again because these emotional vampires keep popping up in my life or the lives of the people around me that I care about.

Last year I went through this with someone who constantly lied and manipulated me to the point where I was a basket case. He was an emotional vampire. I swore it wouldn’t happen to me again, and it won’t – specifically when it comes to men.

There is nothing in the world worse than being used, manipulated, treated terribly, and lied to by the people who claim to care about you. If someone truly cares about you, they treat you right, no matter the circumstances.

Yes, when we are angry we tend to say things to each other, but if the feelings for another are true, striking out, name calling and other dirty fighting tends not to happen because even through the anger, you still care enough not to be cruel.

I was reading something a friend posted on facebook yesterday, and one of the verses she used was Proverbs 18:21 (NASB):

²¹ Death and life are in the power of the tongue,
And those who love it will eat its fruit.

My translation says it slightly different than hers, but the words mean the same. Words have power over people. The things you say can cut like a knife or be a soothing balm. It is up to us how we choose to use them.

Singles – look within yourself and ask God to show you those things you need to work on before you get married. There are things I’ve been realizing about myself lately that I know would make me more difficult to live with, so I am taking the steps to correct it… NOW…before marriage comes my way. I think it would be easier to fix now rather than fight about it through a couple of years.

I’m not perfect, but I do not plan to be difficult once I reach the point of that level of commitment with the man God intends me to be with. I do refuse to be a doormat, for someone to walk all over, but my years of independence have made me strong, too strong for the wrong man (I’ve said it before… I’ve been told I scare men because of my strength and independence. Obviously they are the wrong men, because I won’t scare the right one). I don’t want to run the home on my own. It isn’t for me to do that once I am married. So, I am working on some things that will need to tone down once I do get to that level of commitment.

God is showing me what I need to do in order to be the right woman for the right man, and while I know some things in my heart, I still have to make the effort on my own to make the changes, through God’s guidance and love. I can not take back the things I give up and say “My way is better” or “He won’t do this or that so I have to.”

The key that man I ultimately commit to needs to understand is this: HE has to take my heart out of God’s Hands,  accept it, protect it and cherish it - forever.

Jeremiah 29:11 (NASB)

¹¹ For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.