Forgiveness.
It's a new concept to me this year. I have been a christian all my life, but I don't think I've fully realized the value and necessity of forgiveness.
I made a few mistakes last year, and paid for it this year. However, the people that were punishing me didn't treat me fairly. Like any person who has been hurt in some manner, I quietly hid the pain away in my sub-conscience. I told myself I had been wronged and the people didn't deserve my forgiveness. They didn't deserve to be treated like decent human beings, because to me, they weren't. I tried not to play the victim, and I tried to be civil. But something started to eat at me. It was a big fat grudge that I was carrying for my situation.
I didn't understand how I was supposed to forgive. I couldn't bring myself to forgive someone for choices that they made that effected me, much less forget what had happened. Jesus calls us to forgive, but I kept telling him that I couldn't forgive because my situation was never resolved. But Jesus calls us to forgive anyways. I decided to step out in faith and tell the people that had hurt me that I would forgive them....eventually. The simple act of telling someone that you don't have the capacity to forgive them at a specific moment in time is momentous. I suppose it requires a real maturity.
Forgiveness doesn't have to be a ceremonial occasion that leaves you with warm butterflies in the end. Forgiveness is one of the toughest things one can choose to do, but it turns out to be the most fruitful. You don't have to be in the “perfect” place to forgive someone. You don't have to have a situation resolved. You have to let go, and let God.
I allowed God to work by simply telling someone that I would forgive them.
Forgiveness is not quickly slapping a bandaid on an unfinished conversation. It is recognizing that even when people wrong us in this life, that we have to give them grace. We have to have the understanding that we will be wronged in this life, and we will also wrong others. But we cannot lord that over people, or hold onto those memories forever. Forgiveness is moving on.
Namaste,
Tess Bates
