Finding Our Safe Space

We just added to our immediate family unit. We have a friend whom I will just call Kay who recently moved in with us. She has now become part of the family. Unfortunately, she has to sleep on the couch because we don’t have an extra room but we’re making it work. She had a need that we could fulfill. She needed a safe place in order to regroup, where she wasn’t made to feel less than what she was. I find that the most difficult part about her situation is that it was her mom and other family members who call her a “black sheep” just because she’s made mistakes in her past. They haven’t let her live those choices down, no matter what she has done to prove herself now. So, she needed a family who would support her and help her to feel that success. She also needed a place where she didn’t have to worry about verbal abuse and cut downs.

We all have a need to find a safe place where we are loved and cared for. We all need to have a place where our past doesn’t matter, only the future that we are trying to create at this moment. We have that with God. He gives us our safe space because we matter to Him. For whatever it is that we are going through, He loves and cares deeply for us. We all need to know that it is okay to reach out and ask for help. That doesn’t make us weak. Our strength is in getting through our perceived failures. (Related post: Accepting failure is actually the key to success). When we’ve come through those low points, then we are lifted so much higher!

So, what did I learn from this? The whole safe space thing has made me realize that how we treat others, matters. I can’t always give as much as I would like to but the important part is that I give what I can. Why? It may make a difference to someone and it also demonstrates that I am attempting to show God’s love in the ways that I can. Remember that God is love and love needs to be shared. When I put my life in God’s hands, He shows me what He wants me to do with it, just as it says in Matthew 25:37-40. Let me sum it up, when we’ve tried to help others in all the ways possible, then we have done it for Him as well.

What can you gain from this? Put others first before yourself. That person who cut you off in line, don’t repay them by getting in their face and yelling. Instead, pray for them and try to look beyond what is just on the surface. We can’t know what that person is going through. They might have gotten some devastating news, for all we know. Give others the benefit of the doubt. Sometimes that doesn’t always work. So try to pray for them instead, asking for God to heal them and to help keep you from anger. You never know if something will help unless you try. Kindness goes a really long way.