I looked this one up, just to be sure I knew precisely what it is to be vengeful.
The internet says: “seeking to harm someone in return for a perceived injury.”
I don’t know that I’ve really felt vengeful in my life. If someone hurts me, I don’t suddenly wish their house would burn down or that they’d lose their job or that they’d get sick
But I can definitely think of times when someone has treated me poorly or wronged me and I have wanted to publicly or semi-publicly out them in some way.
I don’t know if that urge is because I want to hurt the other person, though. It’s more about me.
Maybe I want sympathy.
Or maybe it’s that I want encouragement to be justified in my anger towards the person who wronged me.
Or I want people to join me in my anger at this person.
Or maybe I want to feel self-righteously superior.
The conclusion we can draw here is that even if it’s not vengeful, my urge to publicly air a grievance is not exactly pure and holy. 😉
And we can conclude that if I wonder, “Should I publicly air this grievance?”, I should immediately tell myself, “No.”
Because the odds of me having good motives for doing that are pretty much zilch.
Yikes. Your prompts are getting pretty heavy lately, aren’t they.
“Vengeful” is a pretty dramatic word. Sort of Old Testament feeling to me, and I honestly cannot think of a time I’ve ever sworn vengeance on someone because of something they’ve done to me. Except, again, the gophers and rabbits that regularly attack our plants. And in that case, I sic my husband on them. 🙂
I was thinking the same thing! First with the enemy letter, now vengefulness. Geez. The prompt creator must’ve been having a bad day. What’s next? Who would you like to eliminate?
“Who is on your hit list?” Haha!
It’s the end of a month, which means I chose all the fun prompts already and am left with the less desirable prompts.
So, I suppose you can expect some doom and gloom at the end of each month??
Maybe if someone would hurt my children? I could be once vengeful then!
I’ve always liked this quote:
“In taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior.”
Francis Bacon
Such a good thing to remember!
Outraged — I feel that, sometimes. The “but you can’t do that!” kind of outrage that results from, um, people doing outrageous things. But I don’t do vengeful. I can’t think of the last time I was vengeful. Ditto enemy … I do wish a couple of people would just disappear, because the trouble they cause is more than enough, but I don’t so much have an enemy as an enlarged sense of exasperation toward their behavior. I would be glad if my current nemesis were eradicated for good: Poison ivy is very bad news for a couple of my kids.
The wishing someone would just disappear; yes, I totally relate to that. I don’t necessarily want the person to suffer! I just don’t want to have to deal with them.
Like, maybe they could move to the other side of the world. 😉
Does fantasizing about doing something count? In moments of anger, I’ve had fantasies about getting back at someone who I feel has insulted or disrespected me by signing them up for every magazine, sales call, pizza delivery, junk mail, and spam imaginable. I’ve never done it, but the thought entertains me until I calm down.
Haha, I love how gentle your vengeance is. I can think of much worse things to do to enemies!
My first thought was a Bible quote, and I’m not even a Bible person!
“Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord”. Now, as I told you, this isn’t my area, but I very much believe God is in charge and has it all under control. Isn’t that what it means? And is it the same as
“Karma’s a b&@%#!”?
Yep, yep, that’s good to remember. I might not be able to make everything just, but I can trust God to handle it.
I will admit that I have had vengeful thoughts–even though I know it’s not up to me. Sadly, my thoughts have come when we’ve been hurt by church/church ministries and by people who claimed to love Christ and love us but who caused the most pain we’ve ever dealt with in our adult lives. It’s very hard to watch them seemingly go on with little to no consequences for their behavior while we struggle mightily. That being said, I thought it was hard when my husband I walked through a very difficult situation with a prior ministry but when it happened to our daughter, that was a whole ‘nother mom-level of “vengefulness”.
Please understand: I’m not saying any of my feelings were right or even justified, just being honest. I am happy to say that my sweet, godly husband made the first step toward restoration and reconciliation and, while things will never be the same and the pain and scars remain, that situation is much better now. And, I’m proud to say, that our daughter reacted much more Christlike than her mom did when she was hurt by the church. I’m so grateful for God’s grace and forgiveness and for the lessons we learned in each situation, even though at the time, it was impossible to see HIS good in them.
No shame here; we all have feelings that we wish we didn’t! I think what’s important is what we do with those feelings. Do we nurture, feed, and hold onto them? Or do we talk truth to ourselves?