Forgiveness

Forgiveness

I have been struggling with forgiveness for most of my life. I am not one that finds it easy to forgive others when they hurt me. When I am involved in a friendship, I put my whole self into that relationship. When they do something to hurt me, it really hurts me and it is hard for me to move on. My heart has been aching this summer with the hurt caused by a good friend and the fact that I knew I needed to forgive them and move on, but I just couldn’t. Our pastor even had a whole sermon dedicated to forgiveness a few weeks ago and I still couldn’t do it. My heart hurt even worse after listening to the sermon and I felt my face was on fire because what he was saying was so true for me. I have been praying about this since the whole stupid thing happened and about a week ago, I felt it. I felt the forgiveness coming out of me. I knew what I had to do. I was planning on writing this person a letter and telling them, “hey, I forgive you! “ I had the whole thing thought out in my mind and it sounded good. And, before I could write it, whammo! They do it to me again. They did it to me again. I was so angry last night that I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t sleep! I was like, “I’m done, this is it, I’m done! It’s over!” And then, that little voice, you know the one, says this to me: “Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?" Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times. Matthew 18:21-22. Really? I mean I’ve already felt like I have forgiven more than my share of times and not ever felt like I’ve been forgiven much. Instead I feel like I get an attitude and there is no real friendship there anymore. But again, I hear "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times. And, after I heard that little voice, I felt the forgiveness flowing out of me. Am I happy about it? NO! Am I still hurt? You bet! Am I over it? I don’t know. But they have to live with the constant back stabbing and leaving me out of things, not me. I forgive you!