Stop apologizing when you shouldn’t

I apologize for everything.

It’s a horrible curse.

There is a time to apologize and there is a time you shouldn’t and I often apologize when I shouldn’t.

Several years ago I had a very bad experience in my life and a family member informed me I was bringing them down and told me to stop contacting them as I went through this experience.

A few months later, I was the one who apologized.

A few months ago two grown women mocked me in front of another group of grown women and when I stepped back from that situation I was mocked again for not having thick enough skin.

And, yes, you guessed it, in the end, I apologized for having “thin” skin.

It is insane the number of times I have been mistreated in my life and apologized for what I must have done wrong.

A few times I may have done something wrong, but most of the time, I shouldn’t have apologized.

I have waited for apologies. I certainly expected apologies from Christians that never came and never will. That hurts and messes with my mind quite a bit, but we can’t sit around waiting for an apology by apologizing first ourselves. I apologized once to a family member, waiting for her to apologize as well, only to have her accept my apology and never mention how atrocious her behavior had been in the first place. In fact, this has now happened to me three times with all female members of my family. I have stopped apologizing for their behavior and I hope to make that a regular practice from now on.

As I said in the beginning, there is a time to apologize and if we have really been out of line, then, yes, by all means. Please apologize. But if a person has hurt you, been rude to you, has been passive-aggressive over and over to you, has mocked you in front of others, has talked behind your back, has come after your children as a way to hurt you — No. You don’t apologize when you either finally snap and tell them off or when you walk away and never look back.

I believe that apologizing can be a curse and it is a curse many of us need to break.