Skip to main content

Hate is Heavy

Hate is Heavy 

I’m convinced every single one of us will die with at least one person who absolutely hates us. Not “mildly annoyed.” Not “unsubscribed from our newsletter.” Not even “meh.” I mean hates.

Like- if Netflix made a documentary about your downfall, they’d host a watch party with themed snacks. (Probably chips shaped like your face, dipped in salsa with glee.)

Some people don’t just want to see you stumble. They want to see you stumble, face-plant, roll 300 feet down the hill, and get hit by a bus at the bottom. 

And I used to obsess over it. Where does that level of loathing come from? Don’t they get tired? Don’t they need a snack? I can’t even hold a plank for thirty seconds, but some folks hold resentment poses for decades. Incredible core strength.

I’ve had people who strongly disliked me. My daughter Sadie would call it “I’m not a fan of,” but she usually says that about beets, not humans.

I read once that people hate you for three reasons:

  • They see you as a threat.

  • They hate themselves.

  • They want to be you.

And I’ll add a fourth: sometimes people are just…a little bit evil. (We don’t like saying that out loud, but scroll the comment section on any news story and tell me I’m wrong.)

So what do we do with haters?

Here’s what I used to do: fantasize about the perfect comeback. The mic drop. The shower monologue that would devastate my enemy so completely they’d move to another zip code. Spoiler: it never worked.

Now? I try to remember: happy, whole people don’t bully. People full of love don’t have spare room for hatred. Hurt people hurt people. Broken people break people.

Doesn’t mean you excuse them. Doesn’t mean you let them trample your boundaries. You’re allowed to block, delete, walk away. Protecting your peace is holy work.

But I’ve also learned to see them. Not excuse them. Not entertain them. Just recognize that beneath their venom is the same thing beneath my worst moments: pain. Loneliness. Fear.

So here’s my message to my hater: I won’t hate you back. It’s exhausting enough keeping up with middle school math homework. I’ll pray you find peace, because carrying that much poison has to be heavy.

Remember: Jesus had haters. So many haters. Enough to get Him killed. And His message wasn’t “clap back harder.”

It was: Love your enemies. Pray for those who mistreat you.

Which is honestly the rudest, hardest, most infuriating command He could’ve given us. Because when someone hits you, you want to hit back twice as hard. That’s human.

But Jesus says: Don’t play their game. Flip it. Meet hate with love. Cruelty with compassion. Darkness with light.

So when someone hates you, they’re handing you an invitation.
To hate back- or to become the kind of person who refuses to.
To add to the noise- or to become the quiet.
To let hate multiply- or to stop it cold.

When you choose not to hate back, you don’t just free them.

You free yourself.

Because hate is heavy. It corrodes the vessel that carries it. And life is already too fragile, too beautiful, too short to carry around someone else’s poison.

So the next time your hater surfaces? Shake your head. Whisper a prayer. Walk on lighter. Because their hate says everything about their pain, and nothing about your worth.

And maybe the greatest rebellion in a world addicted to outrage is to look hate dead in the eye and say:
You don’t get to live here. Love already moved in.

“If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink… Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

 

– Romans 12:20–21

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Wooden Tulips

  Wooden Tulips T he first time I was ever really afraid- the kind of afraid that makes your body cold from the inside out- was the night Sadie was born. She was supposed to come on Valentine’s Day. Of course she didn’t. Sadie and Erin are both stubborn, so naturally she showed up early. I remember kissing Erin’s forehead, paper hearts taped to the hospital window, me rehearsing the one job I’d been assigned: cut the cord. I was ready to nail it. Dad of the Year. Opening scene. Cue applause. And then- she was here. Tiny cries, a flurry of nurses, scissors in my hand, cord cut, done. Erin was drifting in and out from the C-section meds, crying, laughing, floating. I was waiting to hold our baby. Our brand-new everything. And then a nurse leaned in. Whispered. “I’m sorry. I think your baby has Down Syndrome.” That was the first thing anyone said about my daughter. Not “She’s beautiful.” Not “Congratulations.” Just: I’m sorry. I didn’t even know what that meant yet. How could she k...
3 comments
Read more

The Jacket

E very man has one item of clothing his wife has begged him to throw out for years. Mine was a light-blue jean jacket with a fake white cotton collar. Erin hated that jacket with the kind of passion most people save for politics or pineapple on pizza. I’d had it for years. Presidents had come and gone. My career had risen, collapsed, and tried to rise again. Our kids had grown taller than Erin — which isn’t saying much, but still. And through it all, that jacket kept hanging by the door like a stubborn dog that refused to die. It was hideous. I can admit that now. The collar looked like dirty clouds glued on by a kindergartner’s craft project gone wrong. The denim was the exact shade of regret you get when you bleach jeans one cycle too many. And still - I wore it everywhere. School events. Grocery runs. Parent-teacher conferences. Probably even funerals. It wasn’t clothing. It was my emotional support jacket. Erin tried everything: gentle hints, sarcastic digs, quiet donation runs tha...
3 comments
Read more

The Spirit of Division (and Why We’re All Being Played)

  W e hear stories all the time about the supernatural—miraculous healings, near-death experiences, strange whispers in the night that make even skeptics pause. But how do we know what’s real? That’s what investigative journalist (and former atheist) Lee Strobel asks in his new book Seeing the Supernatural . He dives into evidence of the unseen world and invites us to consider something both ancient and terrifyingly current: What if God really does still rule over the spiritual realm—angels, demons, all of it? And maybe that’s where we need to start. Because the real battle today? It’s not just political, cultural, or ideological. It’s spiritual. We like to think politics is about ideas—policy, vision, leadership. But underneath the hashtags and press conferences, something darker is happening. Something feeding on us. Every election cycle, every argument at the dinner table, every “unfriend” click on Facebook— it all fuels a spirit that thrives on outrage. That sp...
Post a Comment
Read more