In Loving People Who Are Hard to Love, Joyce Meyer has written a brand-new book covering the topic of love and she guides readers on how we can learn to love others who are just plain difficult to. A major scripture verse discussed in this book was John 13:34, that stated that we must love one another like He has loved us. The world is facing a crisis of a lack of love and it’s filled with hatred, violence, we have no peace, no love, and angry is more present more now than ever before. She explained how love provides us with purpose and meaning. Jesus also revealed the important of truly providing for others out of love whether it be giving clothes, food, or water to someone in need, caring for the sick, or someone who is in prison. He compared to how if we did an act of kindness to someone else, then it was like we did it for Christ. Joyce used this teaching to remind believers that the choices we make now will determine if we will be in the righteous side when Jesus returns. She encouraged believers to practice loving others daily and we can use the five love languages to do so.
One of my favorite stories she shared was about her experience with a shopping cart filled with dented cans. There was a time that she didn’t have a lot of money and had to cut costs. One grocery store had this special cart filled with dented cans or missing labels. You wouldn’t have any idea what items you would be getting until you opened the can. It could be dog/ cat food, vegetables, fruit, applesauce. She admitted to how she would choose the cans with the smallest dents and she used this exampled to display how the take the same approach with regard to dealing and choosing people we associate with. We don’t always know what we will be getting and we can’t always read people’s labels. She explained how her husband probably didn’t realize that she had a small dent in her childhood.
She shared how she suffered sexual abuse from her father and she didn’t obtain an apology until he was 80 years old. Her mother didn’t apologize until 30 years after she turned 18. Her abuse affected her personality and she was very controlling and afraid. She dealt with a deep issue of rejection and shame. She had a big anger problem and it surfaced in her marriage to Dave. Her husband had a strong faith and he remained peaceful and loving towards her and eventually she found healing and got closer to Jesus. Another powerful lesson was about porcupines and how they have to close to either being cold in the winter or being stuck by another porcupine quills in order to survive winter. She used to this to illustrate to us on how we may all have wounds that run deep but we are still much better off connecting with others and choosing to love.
I would recommend this life changing book to anyone who is struggling with loving others who are difficult. We all have that boss, coworkers, church members, family, and neighbors that are hard to love. This book contained numerous information and strategies to assist us in loving others. This book would be best to reread and to actively read a chapter a day or week and put it into practice. One of the most insightful teachings in the book is the one about offense and how to deal with it directly head on. We can instead choose to follow peace and to not be easily offended. This is one tactic satan uses a lot to keep people bound and in turmoil against each other. This is more than likely the very reason in the back of the book, she enclosed scriptures to assist readers in dealing with offenses and finding true freedom.
"I received this book free from the publisher, Hachette Book Group/Faithwords for my honest review.”
If you would like to purchase a copy, check it out on Amazon.com:
https://www.amazon.com/Loving-People-Hard-Love-Unconditionally/dp/1546016090
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