Forgiveness requires me to be humble. But sometimes we like being the victim of someone's wrongness, because it gives us a good story to tell. Oh, we don't know that's what we're doing when we're doing it! We don't know we like it when we're telling it! But if we are telling the same stories over and over about the same thing, we have to stop and ask ourselves what we're getting out of telling that story! It's not a good thing to hold a grudge and hold an offense over someone. It keeps us awake at night, replaying their words or actions over and over in our heads. Okay, maybe you ARE the right one, and they ARE the wrong one, but does telling the story change anything? It just paints a picture of a victim and a crime. Forgiving the offense will change the story in our own minds. That's where it needs to change first.
Forgiving allows us to stop being a victim to someone else's crime. It allows us to stop justifying our pain all the time. It allows us to finally come to terms with putting an end to the saga, and moving on without whatever closure you thought you needed. Forgiving is often one-sided. We will have to forgive someone without them knowing, and without an apology we thought we deserved. We will forgive them because carrying around a grudge and defending our need to do so is exhausting! It is keeping us from enjoying life and maintaining healthy relationships with others. We will finally see that when others start to distant themselves from our constant negativity.
In forgiveness, there is freedom. Freedom from needing to be seen, needing to be right. Needing to be validated, exonerated, justified, and sometimes even acknowledged. Holding on to that story of how they hurt you so unfairly will just keep wounding and attacking, and the worst thing is that it leaves no room to see any good that may be there. By good, I mean lessons. Maybe there is something that can be learned here.
Sometimes we can choose to change the outcome of a bad situation by also choosing how we react to it. I can't change my friend and the way this friend is treating me. But the way I have dealt with it is I have chosen to shift my focus. I had an ideal picture of what I wanted this friendship to be based on the past friendship, but now I have to change the picture. I have to let go of that old picture, and let the future picture be whatever it is now, based on the new people in the picture. In other words, we have changed, and this person is not acting the way I expected based on past results. This person has let me down in many ways, because I am comparing the two sides of this person. One who is very caring and giving, and one who is not capable of that right now. Forgiving the latter will help me to remember the former, and give me peace.
Forgiveness is about peace. Sometimes it is harder to forgive than others, and there are a lot of situations in which I think it would be nearly impossible for me to forgive someone. I hope that I would be able to work through it for my own sake, because I do know what it feels like to harbor bad feelings for too long. It tears you up inside to carry all that hurt inside, and it will begin to show up on the outside before too long.
Truly forgiving someone requires you to be honest with yourself. I think I had to understand why it was important for me to carry the bad feelings around and why it was important to justify being angry. I know my own reasons for this, and I think it's a healthy way to learn more about yourself, and helpful in being more understanding in all other relationships. I think forgiveness is a choice, and I also think it's something we need to ask for if we know we have done wrong to someone. It's just as healthy and humbling in a relationship to ask for it as it is to give it.
Be blessed, and make a list of people you need to forgive today.
1 comment:
Very deep concept here. True, forgiveness heals us. For me, I have a hard time with some people. It's easier for me to just move on and to keep them out of my life as much as possible. Wrong ?? Most likely but, that's how I deal with my situation.
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