When others aren't as they seem...

What a hard lesson for a person to go through...
to find that someone they trusted and believed in is a fake...

What do you do when others are not as they seem?  When you feel betrayed by who you thought they were, by who they made themselves out to be?

As if we haven't had enough to deal with lately, we have been faced with the emotions and the grief that others cause.  It would be one thing if I was the only one to have to deal with these feelings, BUT when you bring my kids into it...that takes it to another level.  I am angry and have actually found myself wishing to cause pain and injury to this person.  This is not something I typically ever have to experience.  I float through life rather happily and without any true feelings of aggression, that is until the Momma Bear in me comes out!

Upon visiting with my bishop about the situation, I walked away with a feeling of gratitude...in the midst of a bunch of yuckiness, I can once again see where the Atonement can work in my life.
I don't have to be the one in the wrong to be blessed by the atonement.
All I have to do is be hurting,
to feel like the load I am carrying is more than I can bear...
IF I am willing to take this to Him and lay it at His feet, He can help to take it away, help me to understand, help me to forgive, help me to try to "get it", help me to continue being me and not be hardened by the actions of others.
The latter of these is the one I am really struggling with...
I do not wish to become hardened, to be less sensitive to others, to be mistrusting, to be doubting...
I wish to still see the best in others, I wish to still reach out to those I see that may be in need of a friend.  I don't want to walk away from this experience a calloused, broken person.  I want to believe that people are who they seem to be.  I want to believe that this is an isolated experience, that this is not the norm.  I NEED to believe these things, or I will not be me.

I feel saddened that we cannot believe that ALL people wish to be good...
As I have looked further into the life of this person, I am shocked, I am full of disbelief...how could a person that portrays one thing be the complete opposite?  How could that person not have the integrity to know right from wrong and to follow it?  How could they put another person (a child) through such a nasty hard lesson?  Why can't people just be good?

I struggle with understanding this...
I have never in my life wished to be anything but good.
That does not mean that I have been perfect, far from it, BUT I have never knowingly done anything that would cause harm or pain to another person.  I have never done things that I would be embarrassed of or that would need serious repenting of...
I am who I am...
I am who I say I am...
I do not hide the "real me" behind a mask...

Why do some do this?

I've come to one very sad conclusion...
I always worried that the people who look scary were the ones we needed to be frightened of...
how very, very wrong I was...
those people are real...they aren't out to impress anyone.
They are who they are, and they are not afraid for all to see.
My guess is that they are most likely harmless and would never do anything to hurt another person...maybe they look scary just to keep others away, maybe they are afraid of letting anyone close, afraid of letting anyone in their little bubble???  Don't really know...

But what I do know...Is that we need to be fearful of the ones who seem normal, or who seem lonely, or who seem too interested, who seem too willing to reach out...

There I go again...this is exactly what I don't want to be doing, I don't want to be doubting the goodness of others, BUT I am worried that I will now be so fearful of  trusting others.

I don't want my kids hurt like this ever again!  I don't want to have to sit by a child's bedside and convince them that they did nothing wrong, that there are just people in this world who make bad choices, who aren't as real as we believed them to be, who aren't as they seem...

I pray that things like this will serve to strengthen our children; I pray that they will become closer in their relationship with God, that they will lean on Him for peace and understanding and compassion.

And I even pray that this person, as angry as I feel with him, as let down as I am, as shocked and disgusted with the person he really is inside; I pray that he will figure out what is important in this life and that he will learn that others have feelings, that girls and women are not objects, but that they possess hearts that break.  I pray that one day he will use the atonement of Christ and that he will turn his life around and become the person that he puts out there...because that person is one worth being friends with...while the one deep inside that hides behind the mask is not...