How do you begin to forgive someone who has hurt you? Do you begin sifting through your pain to find the one grain of rationale that could excuse the other person's behavior?The truth is that forgiveness has nothing to do with who is right or wrong. Forgiveness is a free agent. It is not attached to reason or agreement or even understanding. It is, however, attached to wholeness and to your healing and liberation.Unforgiveness is a prison. It slams the door on new beginnings and entrenches you in your present pain. It chains the heart and stops it from beating. It suffocates joy and paralyzes your ability to move on. Unforgiveness is the cancer of the soul. It slowly eats away the marrow of your existence and impairs your judgement, your personality, and your ability to love again. The desire to want the other person who hurt us to also be hurting can be overwhelming. We become jealous of their joy, wanting them to feel the torture we think they deserve. How can she act as though nothing ever happened? we ask ourselves. It's not fair? Where is God in all this? Is there no justice?Yes, there is justice. But justice comes only after we have released our offender into the hands of the One who is solely in the position to judge. Only God knows both sides of the story. Only He knows the deficiencies of both parties. The fears, the past wounds, the generational conditioning, the weaknesses, the insufficiencies of character and integrity. He knows the things that we in the glow of the love failed to notice. The things that should have warned us to guard our hearts.Only God knows the hidden motives and the unspoken regrets of the one who hurt you. The assumptions we make usually do more damage than the truth. Yes, our imaginations can be unmerciful. Trust me, it's never what you think. Your guesses will always be more cruel than the reality of what really transpired, adding unnecessary injury to insult.You need to let it go. You need to forgive. Not for his sake-for yours. It's time to redirect your focus and move on. And you won't be able to do that if you continue to nurse and rehearse your anger, the many wrongs done against you, all the reasons why.If you can't forgive for your own sake, forgive for God's sake. He needs your hands open in order to bless you. Cooperate. No one who wronged you that much deserves so much of your attention. Your fixation is standing in the gap between that person and God, shielding him from conviction. Move out of the way. Free him to receive the proper correction from God.
Still working on this....more to come....
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