for me this is a hard word to think about. i don’t know if i really know what forgiveness means or what true forgiveness is. does it mean that when someone says they are sorry and they mean it and you say you forgive them that you will never think about it again or let it interfere with how you feel about them? does it mean that you will allow them back into your life/heart over and over even though they may hurt you again? does forgiving mean forgetting? can you forgive and still walk away from that person? even if they are your spouse or family member? is asking for forgiveness just as much for you as it is for the other person? is it hard for everyone to forgive or just me? is it strange to ask for forgiveness from someone that doesn’t even know you have hurt them or said something against them? if there is someone in my life that i haven’t forgiven does that mean that God doesn’t forgive me and i am going to hell or something? why didn’t God make it so that once we speak the words "i forgive you" that our minds are erased? why is forgiveness such a struggle for so many people or is it a stuggle for a lot of people?
these are all things that i wonder about. there is a person from my life that i have been unable to forgive because the things they have done to me are so hard to get past. this is not something i am proud of and it is something i am working on but it there none-the-less. there are also people that i feel that i need to ask for forgiveness. holding a grudge against someone for something they did to me when i should let it do. being mad at a boy that broke up with me even though i know it was the best thing. saying i forgive someone when i really don’t and i choose to hold on to it long after the fact. thinking mean things about someone. having an issue with someone and never saying anything and letting it come into my mind over and over again. making fun of the way people dress. talking behind someone back. there are so many wrongs i have done to others that i could spend my whole life asking for forgiveness from people. just thinking about it is exhausting.
from what i can tell, with my very limited knowledge, forgiveness is something that everyone deals with in their lives. i don’t think God would have put it in the Bible so much if it wasn’t a big deal. right? this is one of those things that makes us all the same. no matter if you are a homeless person living in an cardboard box or you are the Queen of England there has been a time in your life when you have had to ask someone to forgive you or had to lay the hurt down to forgive. forgiveness is even in the 12 step program (step #9: Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others if you were wondering.) which means that asking for and being forgiven is a part of being a better person as well as a person of God. basically forgiveness is no joke and something that i want to spend a lot more of my time thinking about and doing and asking for when i need to.
maybe ill do a little forgiving right now.
to me, forgiveness is a long process and I'm not sure it looks the same for every person. I think each person's way to forgive in unique. I have trouble forgiving some people in my life as well. I have learned to embrace it as an ongoing process. There will be setbacks and there will progress. Maybe, like many things in life, it's the journey of forgiveness that's more important and valuable than the actual end product of forgiveness. Just a thought ;)
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