Inktober Day 17: Deserve it Least

In choosing to work on black paper for Inktober, I am finding myself feeling limited a bit. So I dug through my gel print paper and found this one, cut out the hole, and pasted it onto the black paper. I did that before I found the quote I wanted to utilize. In my quote search, I found these woods from John Harrigan. I love that by writing the final three words – deserve it least – they are emphasized by being written within the black circle.

It is indeed hard to love people who have treated us badly, done bad things, or even continue to just create bad situations over and over again. Our patience gets worn down, which allows our tempers to flare, which may make us say bad things. I like that here we are reminded that THAT is the exact time when love is needed most, in the bad times, tempers flaring, and the continual disappointment. And that seems to be the hardest time to love people.

As I thought on this, I also was reminded of times when people loved me when bad was part of how they might describe my behaviors or my outputs. Those moments when we are not our shining best selves. It may not have been easy, yet they loved me when I was not behaving like the true me. It made me think of Jesus on the cross, with his last few words asking God to forgive us because we know not what we are doing…hhmmm.

There will be people and situations that try our patience, THAT is when we need to turn on the love. It may not be easy, yet it will undoubtedly make the situation better in the long run. And most likely, it will make us a better version of ourselves. We can’t change how our love impacts that other person, so we love to change ourselves first…and one day someone will love us when we deserve it least.