Criminal victims

I started this blog after talking with a good friend of mine. It got me thinking about the way things are and how sometimes that's not fair. Its about forgiveness--which seems to come very hard sometimes. Forgiving myself and forgiving others.
There will always be things that I blame on myself. Things in my past and present. When I mess up, I take it hard. When other people hurt me I often blame myself too. I think its my fault for letting them that close.
There are times when it's other peoples fault. I have struggled for many years trying to forgive people that have hurt me. What I don't get is when I hurt other people because I have been hurt. Like a wounded animal.
I hope people will understand, I hope I will understand. On some level we are all hurting. Whether it was a separation of your parents, or an abusive situation, or a relationship gone very wrong. Our responses to these things may not even be conscious. Without knowing it we hurt those that care about us the same way we have been hurt.
My favorite coping mechanism is to avoid and withdraw. I am being very conscious these days in making my friends with people that won't allow me to do that. I need to know at the worst of times no matter how bad I have messed up I can't push them away. And that they wont let me run from my problems. I told you about that dream I had about my friend Kevin where he was a murderer and he came and confessed to me, in my dream I encouraged him to turn himself in and to do what was right, and I guess in my heart that's what I want in a friend and that's what I want to be in a friend.
I think that's what real accountability is, knowing that people are gonna stick by you even when you are at your worst, and knowing that they are going to help you to choose what's right.
Recently I was very upset by a choice that a friend had made. I could see how it was hurting them, and I felt helpless to stop it, so I prayed, and I am still praying. But they never knew that the choice they had made, had hurt me, I was really upset--I mean really how could they have done that? Then I remembered the failure I have been so many times, If God can forgive me, I should extend Gods grace to this friend.
Its so easy to get upset about things, and I think we should get upset about the sin that surrounds us, it should cause us to rise up and praise God for the mercy he has shown us, I don't think we should just stand by and watch our friends fall down. But what I have come to realize is that we cannot in our own power help them up, because really no matter how much farther down they seem from us, in reality we are all in the slimy pit--filthy and helpless. It's only God's grace extended through us that we can pull each other up. The hard part is that people can only be helped if they want to be helped, and that decision is not ours, only God can change the hearts of men.
We are all victims, but we are all criminals. I am pretty tired of people blaming their mistakes on the mistakes others have made, whatever happened to personal responsibility? I guess the same old game since Eden continues. Nobody is innocent here. Nobody escapes unhurt by this fallen world either, we are all losers. Its only when we realize the degree of our depravity that we truly see our need for salvation.