What to do with your hate mail…

Kari Patterson > Devotional Thoughts > What to do with your hate mail…
Devotional Thoughts59 Comments0

i hate you love you

I can’t believe I’m going to post this.

Here goes.

I understand getting hate-mail isn’t that big of a deal. I also understand the obvious reality that not everyone likes me. (smile) However, I received my first full-fledged piece of hate-mail last week, and it was such a good opportunity to consider how Jesus wants us to respond to those who hate us. I also just “happened” to be teaching through 1 John 3, and we were focusing on the passage surrounding v. 13:

“Do not be surprised, my brothers and sisters, if the world hates you.”

Well that’s funny because that’s exactly how I felt when I opened that email and read those words. Surprised. Like, Wow, this person REALLY hates me. But I soon realized it was not really me, but rather the idea of me. 

Now, you may question the wisdom of this (or perhaps a lot of the things I do) but I believe that part of what God has called me to do with my life is to live as Exhibit A. That is, offer up my most real self–the good parts, the growing parts, the really ugly parts–and give you one example of a daugher of the King giving her best shot at living for Jesus.

You will see failure, you will see triumph …

… you will see hatemail. 

So here it is. Then we’ll talk about it:

Your hair is so beautiful and blonde. Your message is so soothing. I’m wondering why you’re not living the life of Jesus? He gave his life to help the poor (do you vote according to your right-wing hubbie e.g., cut food stamps; anti ACA that finally gives health care to children w/”pre-existing conditions” etc.) and stay at home baking cookies while non-right-wing mothers just like you WORK and have meaningful careers while raising wonderful GOD’s children.

You are sooooooooooooooooooo PRETTY!!!! And your Driscoll-esqu manly man no doubt loves using you instead of someone he would have to pay for. Oh, that’s right, he does pay for you because you don’t stand up for yourself EVER for ANY REASON WHATSOEVER.

Thanks for helping more men think that they own us. THEY DO NOT.

Wowza! There’s a lot going on here, but after spending the day in prayer, before responding, a few things came to mind:

  • Speak the truth in love. If someone wrongly attacks or accuses us, there is a time to remain silent, but there is also a time to speak the truth in love correcting those who accuse. Paul does exactly this in 1 Corinthians 9.
  • Use every opportunity to talk about Jesus. I figure if someone thinks about me enough to write me a letter or criticize, they are listening! Well then, let’s take the opportunity to talk about Jesus. It’s no big surprise that I’m full of faults, but Jesus isn’t—let’s focus on Him. The way the gospel spread in the book of Acts was through persecution. Whenever the apostles were attacked, they used it as a chance to talk about Jesus. That’s how the Philippian jailer got saved (Acts 16)!
  • Pray. Matthew 5:44 is clear—pray for those who persecute you.  I believe that if God allows someone across my path, there’s a reason. So, pray! “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places (Eph 6:12). Our fight is not against the people who hate us, but against the powers who hate Jesus. I have been praying daily for the gal who wrote this letter, although we have never met.

So, without further ado, my letter:

Hi xxxxx,

Wow, your letter makes me sad.  Do you know, love, and follow Jesus? Every day I fail in my attempts to love and follow Him, but that is my greatest desire, and I see His life most characterized by love. Do you find yourself growing in your ability to love others?

I couldn’t write back right away because I spent the day with a homeless gal … (I go on to share some specific ways that we ARE serving the poor and tangibly following Jesus. Ya’ll don’t need to know all those details. 🙂

Then, of course, there’s all the ways that I fail. I lose my temper with my children. I get jealous and critical of others. Some days I get so tired of being with people that I just want to run away and live in the mountains where no one knows me. Every fall season I’m really tempted to buy new boots. I have tons of acne scars from some rough teen years. I have thick ankles.

I share all this, not to promote myself or deprecate myself, but to let you know a little more of who I am, and let you know I am a real women, doing my best, just like you. I certainly fail every single day, as you do, but we must encourage and cheer for each other instead of pushing each other down, yes?  My husband (who is not Driscoll-esque in any way other than his facial hair.  Perhaps you would have a more accurate assessment if you had ever met him.), champions and supports me. He does all my social media, stays home with the kids many weekends as I travel to speak, and humbly serves me to no end.  I am so sorry that you have so misjudged my family, but I am mostly sorry for you, sister, because your heart is full of hate and bitterness, and there is no hope and life and joy in that place.

With all my heart I pray that you find joy and peace, instead of bitterness. I am sorry you find me so offensive.  Gratefully, I am loved with a crazy love from a Beautiful Savior which enables me to walk in peace and confidence despite all my failings and despite the praise or criticisms of others. Before Him and Him alone I stand or fall. I pray you come to know Jesus’ love that transforms our hearts and gives us life.

With His love,

Kari

I may come to regret sharing this; it’s way beyond my comfort zone. But let me tell you something, Jesus-following sisters and brothers:

When you are walking with Jesus you have nothing to be ashamed of. You can walk in humble confidence because JESUS is your confidence. You don’t have to share your resume but when you walk in obedience and selfless service to others, you don’t have to second guess yourself or smart under every criticism. You can stand secure.

If you are following Jesus, stand tall. He is your judge. He is your master. He is your lover. There is peace, rest and confidence there.

I pray you do follow Him with all your heart. And may His confidence and peace be with you this weekend, no matter what mail you receive…

Thank you so much for reading. I truly value your love, care, and partnership in this life of faith. 

59 thoughts on “What to do with your hate mail…”

  1. Kari-Wow. Bless that woman. Mostly, bless her to know we all only need the acceptance and approval of one person-our Savior. Bless her that she can be freed from the toxicity in her heart. I have been meaning to write you for sometime (not just a comment-but an email full of thoughts-and still plan to). However, for the moment I will keep it short. I am grateful for you. Grateful you share your amazing talent of understanding God’s word and putting it into words that uplift, inspire, and become a catalyst of much thought and even change. Thank you for putting yourself out there-for people who love and appreciate you (like me), as well as those who may not feel so fondly. May God strengthen you and allow you to never let words from others become a stumbling block to you.

    1. Thank you so much, Whitney for taking the time to encourage me. Bless you for your kindness; and I look forward to that email! 😉 Your sister, Kari

  2. Kari, what a gracious, loving response to a bitter, jealous person. It is sad that she has those roots of bitterness in her heart, but Jesus can help her pull them out! Thank you for sharing this, though I know it wasn’t easy. Yes, the world hates us; sometimes even fellow believers don’t like us much. Yet the Lord is our comfort; He always loves us and has the right thing to say (like those verses in 1 John 3!) God bless you richly.

    1. Thank you so much, Beth! Yes, what a picture of those roots–Lord, keep us all for letting that creep into our hearts! Bless you, sister.

  3. Woman of courage you inspire me! I appreciate your bold, gentle, truthful response to this woman. You live well Kari and being with you is as one of His lights humbles me and again I say INSPIRE me to follow hard after our King Jesus. Love you toooo big for these words to adequately express.

    1. Love you my sweet housemate and FRIEND. Humbled by your tender care for Mary and SOOO incredibly grateful to all be together in this Renew family, stumbling along together in following Jesus. Have a beautiful “Thursday” today. 🙂

    2. Thank you so much, my housemate and FRIEND. Love you so much. How good is our God that He allowed our paths to cross. Thanks for all your doing right now, with all that’s going on at the ol’ 1601. 😉

  5. I remain the vice president of your fan club and humbly serve under the president, Jeff Patterson. You and your response to your first hate letter make me proud.

    Love you,
    Paul

  6. Kari,
    I SO needed this today. I naively struggled to believe you of all people could get hate mail. And if you have thick ankles then I’m in trouble.
    Anyways, thank you for pointing to Jesus and encouraging us all to do the same.

    1. Just un case that reads weird, I mean its hard for me to see how someone could actually be hateful toward you.

  7. Kari,
    Thank you for sharing this, for being so real and bringing us all along on this painful journey. I pray protection around you. Your bravery in this situation gives me courage.
    Love you. Your sis in Christ, Chelsea

  8. Kari, I am so thankful for all you share of your life, your heart, your walk. You are gifted to communicate your heart and courageous enough to be transparent all for His glory. From someone who is very private and struggles to even put anything on Facebook, I admire this so much. Your openness certainly has it’s costs in privacy and opportunities to be misunderstood and misjudged, but the rewards in the Kingdom will far outweigh them all! Stand strong, my sister. We truly all live before an audience of One, although the enemy would love to convince us that we need to please everyone (which is impossible) and therefore quiet us down. I’ll be praying for you…and for her. I’ve got a testimony to share with you that might encourage your heart in the crazy way only God can do. There was a woman at church who I could feel couldn’t stand me for around 10+ years. It was hard. I didn’t know what I had done, but I surrendered it to Him and tried to live graciously with this person. In God’s great humor, I ran into this person everywhere…when out of town, children’s ball games, Disneyland even! Finally, when trapped in a car for a 3hr drive home from a women’s retreat with our church (where you were speaking BTW 🙂 , she quite ironically ended up sitting next to me…just the 2 of us in the backseat…for 3 hours 🙂 It was as if God had His thumb on her heart, and out it poured…heartache, jealousy, anger, bitterness, resentment, more heartache…and tears, as we cried together and I sat quietly listening to her heart. And God did an Amazing thing…she let go of the bitterness. She opened her heart. That was 5 years ago. Now she is one of my best friends, our children are best friends, we are in a housechurch together (close family fellowship of believers sharing life together weekly), we’ve vacationed together, we are sisters in every sense of the word and our lives are knit together in a most intimate way…we’ve experienced God’s Amazing Grace and His plan for our relationship that is truly beauty from ashes. I don’t know if you’ll ever meet this person. But sometimes we are just the sandpaper God uses to smooth out the rough patches in someone else. It doesn’t feel good to be someone’s sandpaper…it stings. But KNOW that God will work ALL things together for our Good…you never know what that will look like 🙂 Blessings, dear Kari. Keep shining your light and sharing your amazing gift with us all.

    1. OH. MY. WORD. I have goosebumps down to my toes! Thank you so much for sharing this, Shelly! Seriously–this is amazing! What a testimony of God’s POWER. This is just crazy. How great is our God that He orchestrates things like this, and how awesome that you patiently waited it out and allowed Him to do His work. THANK YOU SO MUCH for sharing this! My heart is rejoicing!! Much love in Jesus, Kari

    2. Now that is Grace. You have shown her that it is Christ in you that gives you your beauty, not yourself. But you will have to explain to me please. What is “Driscoll-esque”? 🙂

      1. Thanks, Mike. My best guess is that “Driscoll-esque” refers to the perception that Mark Driscoll doesn’t have a high-view of women, conservative, etc. I think Mark Driscoll is great–but he and Jeff are very different. That’s all.

  9. So much pain and anger in that letter. I pray for her and others like her, because I was once that angry in my life (not at you Kari..) but at everyone, at my circumstances (even though I had put myself there) at everything. Only God can bring peace from those types of situations. It is an ongoing struggle to see the good in all things, thank you for helping us find Jesus, even in the hate.

    1. Praise God, Emily, that He brought you out of that and into love and joy! Only God! Thanks for sharing that; it’s an encouragement to us all. Love,
      Kari

  10. There is such wisdom through your whole letter! Like Jesus, you have love for those that don’t love you and that is an inspiration! Once again I am thankful for the words God speaks through you. Love You and thank you for sharing!

    1. Oh sweet friend, I miss you. I’m bummed we missed our last get together. Thank you for this encouragement–I’m really really looking forward to seeing you when we get back!

  11. Okay, so your hair really is pretty BUT what is even more lovely and be becoming is your gracious heart that longs to serve Jesus and others. Thank you for your transparency and example. Thank you, thank you for living and open life, full of faults and inviting us in to learn and grow with you.

  12. As I read the letter a lot of things came into my mind. Like for example the day I met you and how you volunteered yourself to give ride to SOM every morning to this “crazy black brazilian woman” that you had just met. Then I remembered seen u holding those street children in Brazil, they were dirty, they were high, they were hurt…and I remember the way that those girls would touch your hair amazed to see such a beautiful blond long hair. They where amazed…I could spend hours here with all the memories I have about you. And I am just laughing now because I “wish” I was the one receiving this hate letter bc I would not be so kind like u were. Miss u my beautiful sister…tell Jeff I said hi.

    1. Well good grief you’ve got me crying like a baby, Luci! Those were precious years. I love your country, Brasil, and your people, and YOU. You are a beautiful woman of God. Thank you for taking the time to write out these memories that just touched me in a deep, deep place. It’s been a long time since I remembered those years. They were so, so precious to me. Wow… Thank you.

  13. Kari,
    The human soul is such an amazing thing. It is capable of so much good and yet under pressure and when broken can create so much hurt.
    Thank you for reflecting God’s love and allowing the holes in you to shine Him so well to the darkest of places in this beautiful messy world.

    Much Love and Blessings on you and yours~

    -Sarah

  15. Kari …. I read this first thing this morning but couldn’t write until my children were fed. 😉 I can only imagine how much this has weighed on your heart because I can’t get it off of MY mind. Both because I love you dearly and because of the blatant jab made at all of us who stay at home with our children. But, I am so grateful for your humble, graceful response and the thoughts you have shared here. Two verses came to my mind when I read all of this. First, Matthew 5 11-12 “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” And Proverbs 19: 17 … we read this at Bible study the other night and I immediately wrote your name next to it because it made me think of you … “If you help the poor, you are lending to the Lord – and he will repay you!” I am blessed to know you, Kari, and while you do have beautiful hair and are stunningly beautiful on the outside, your heart is truly what shines because it is full of the Holy Spirit and you pour it out so graciously to others. Love you, friend, and I’ll keep on praying for you. And I’ll pray for this gal, too. xo

    1. Tears. Thanks, friend. And truly, I should blame YOU for the hate letter because you’re the amazing photographer who makes everyone look beautiful! Thank you for your selfless labor to bless me with photos and friendship. I love you. xo

  16. Wow. Thanking God for you again today. He is really using you in my life. Thank you so much for being willing!!!!

  17. Kari, I have followed your blog for about 7 months now (thanks to one of my sweet daughters-in-law!) and have been going through your 31 day devotional, almost every month-I can’t believe how timely your writings are! Here I am, a 56 year old wife, mom & nana, a Christ Follower for 40 1/2 years and you’d think I have it all figured out 😉 I would think some days you are peering into my inner most secret areas, or at least, following me around! You, my lovely Sister in Christ, have such an anointing and it saddens me to see the bitterness and hate that has been hurled at you. But, like you so aptly said, there are deeper issues with this poor woman…may God’s grace continually abound in all you do and may this woman be touched down to the depths of her spirit and soul by the Spirit of God. Thank you Kari 🙂

    1. Wow, thank you Cindy for taking the time to write this to me. Oh you have no idea how much it makes my heart SING for joy to know that the feeble words I put down are turned and used for His glory in your life. Hallelujah! Bless you for your kindness–I hope to meet you someday!

  18. Wow! I’m sorry your letter writer thinks it is bad if someone is a stay at home mom/parent. I gather she does not like you having so much influence on the development of your children rather than turning it over to day care and public schools. I know you guys gave up the traditional definition of success, Jeff’s cushy job and the big house, to serve others. There is nothing wrong with wanting to be attractive for your family, as long as it is not an obsession.

    I do not know you from Adam (or Eve) but I have enjoyed reading your blog the past several months. You have challenged me to think about how I am living my life. Keep on keeping on. I hope you have a nice weekend.

    I subscribe to the notion that if everyone is happy with waht you’re doing you’re probably not doing much of anything.

  19. Dearest friend, you keep standing in the boldness of Christ. We weren’t called to be liked by everyone, or called to live the easy life. Ever since I met you I continually feel blessed by just knowing you, your story, your heart and your sweet family. Yes, none of us are perfect nor any of us close to it (what a boring life that would be!) “Be strong and courageous!”

  21. So glad you were able to give the “soft answer” that turns away wrath. Very hurtful to be in the pathway of so much envy and ill will. Even as you hurt, I know you are hurting for the letter’s writer, too. Thank you for sharing–for your continual willingness to share the vulnerability we all experience.

  22. To God be the glory Kari. Thank you for taking time to pray before responding. Thank you for living in relationship with our Lord Jesus. Thank you for loving on this woman. Thank you for choosing such a wonderful godly man to share life with. Thank you for opening your life so that others may grow. You Kari are a blessing to me. I pray that you continue to fight the good fight. I will be there with you. Oh yes, one last thing. If you need to come to a quite place, you and family are more than welcome in our home anytime.

    In His Love,
    Rhonda

  23. Amen dear sister. Your heart is gold. Thanks for sharing, this was such an encouragement today. Truly, I am thankful to God for you! Keep pressing in my friend, and keep that light shining. 😀

  24. Now that is Grace. You have shown her that it is Christ in you that gives you your beauty, not yourself. But you will have to explain to me please. What is “Driscoll-esque”?

  25. Dear Kari,
    I am so sorry that you have to experience this. “Pray for those who persecute you.” It’s amazing to me that with all that is going on in the world, people choose to waste their energies on being negative to someone who is trying to be positive. Keeping you in my prayers.
    Maggie

  26. ha! I had an email all set in my brain, but everyone has touched on every point. So I’ll suffice it to say “ditto.” May God continue to bless you with wisdom and a tender heart.

  27. When my husband and I were expecting our tenth child, I confided in a friend that my husband and I were struggling financially. Without my knowledge, she went to a deacon at our church and explained our situation to him. The deacon contacted us and our church provided financial support to help make our house payment. About two months later, I received an anonymous letter in the mail accusing me of taking advantage of our church (which the writer mentioned by name and despite the fact that I had never received help before and was not the one to initiate it. I was actually embarrassed when I found out my friend had spoken to them). The writer also said some very nasty things about how many children we have and, at one point, referred to me as a ”candy machine spitting out candy.” Since the letter was anonymous, I had no chance to respond, but, given the chance, I would hope that I would have the same grace as you. God bless!

  28. I’m really glad that you shared this post. I’m sure it wasn’t something you were totally comfortable doing. There are a lot of reasons I would have a hard time posting this myself, I’m so glad you wrestled through yours and put this out there anyways.
    This is a snapshot of things I’ve witnessed and dealt with daily during work, etc. Bitterness and false accusations shot out and flung toward me and my choices in life that have stung through to my heart.
    I love the way you handled it, but I love most of all your step-by-step way to get ourselves through it.
    I plan on praying through those steps. I want to be able to boldly be what God has called me to be in spite of the pain that comes with it.
    Thank you so much for being an example to me. Thank you for showing me what it looks like to love, forgive, and stand strong in the face of great pain.
    You truly are a great blessing.
    PS – I think you work much harder than I do and I’m considered full-time. 😀 (I couldn’t imagine traveling from my babies – and I’m glad you’re answering God’s call)

  29. Kari,

    I recently found your blog and have enjoyed reading through your stories. As a single young adult, I was also encouraged by how you trusted God with your heart in dating relationships. I must say that when I first saw the title of this post, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Your love for Christ showed through as you lovingly shared your heart and response to the email. Thank you for being such an encouragement!

  30. This post really touched me, but I did spew a little coffee on my keyboard when I came to your thick ankles part in your reply 😉

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