Forgiveness

Forgiveness has been the thing pressed on my heart lately. If I’m being honest, I wish it wasn’t. I wish forgiveness was something that just happened automatically, and wasn’t something I had to pray through and work through. For awhile now God has been speaking to my heart, telling me I needed to write down that list of offences I’d been storing up in my mind. 

Finally, I did it. I sat down with my journal, and I wrote down the list, the ugly, ugly list of offences. I wrote down all the things that had been said and done to hurt me, all the moments, all the feelings. I could barely read over it without weeping – because all of those things have caused me a world of hurt. They’ve broken my heart again and again, and created so much hurt and anger and bitterness. And I’ve been holding out for the apology – holding out for that person to realize what they’ve done to me. I’ve been unconsciously not forgiving in hopes they would genuinely apologize and change. I guess I’ve been waiting for them to deserve my forgiveness.

But as I wrote it all out today, I realised something. No, they don’t deserve my forgiveness. But I do. I deserve to forgive them. I deserve to let go of the pain and the hurt, the anger and the bitterness. I deserve to let go of all those memories and the power they have over me. I deserve to be at peace, to live a life of grace.

I’m not there yet. It’s not over with one journal entry, one moment of honesty with God, but it’s a beginning. Because as I wrote it all out, I began to feel more free. I began to feel a weight being lifted off my shoulders that I didn’t even know I was carrying. It’s like I’d been wrapped up in chains, without even realising it was happening. And as I wrote it all out, as I admitted just how much it had all hurt me, the pain it had all caused me – the chains began to break. The weight began to lift. The process of forgiveness began.

Love keeps no tally of wrongs ya know, and so that’s why I’m doing this. I’ve been keeping a tally and now – I want to let it go. I want to forgive, and truly live. I want to truly love, the way the bible says to.

Love is patient; love is kind. Love isn’t envious, doesn’t boast, brag, or strut about. There’s no arrogance in love;  it’s never rude, crude, or indecent—it’s not self-absorbed. Love isn’t easily upset. Love doesn’t tally wrongs  or celebrate injustice; but truth—yes, truth—is love’s delight! Love puts up with anything and everything that comes along; it trusts, hopes, and endures no matter what. – 1 Corinthians 13:4-7