Everyone Needs Forgiveness
As I continue on this journey to develop my blog site, I have to confess that unlike other business ventures I am involved; this is a completely unplanned project. It is not the concept itself that I am referring to, but in the process to continually determine relevant topics and content and penning them onto paper from my head into a logical and entertaining manner. (Not to mention the fact that the whole notion of sharing myself with others is very far out of my comfort zone.) But I recognize the value of using a forum like this to share and help a larger audience so I proceed by faith alone knowing that I will be guided and provided what I need (including the writing skills) to make this work. And I have to say that I feel that I have been very clumsy with my results thus far. Even to the point that I have questioned if I should still continue with my “This week I learned” posts. But I had quite a few situations happen this week that made me know I had to keep going. I am not done yet, so bear with me for a few more weeks at least…
Have you ever been deeply hurt by someone who has left you feeling broken, hurt or betrayed? Or have you ever been the one doing all of the hurting. Of course you have. We all have, because we are all unique creatures and the glory of being able to have our own free will to act as we choose, can also be a curse. Not only are there bad people out there who purposely do bad things but there are good people out there who do bad things as well. But the moment “bad” is inflicted upon us, especially by someone close to us, that we did not suspect, we become understandably consumed by our own feelings of pain. We, although not always intentionally, can construct an invisible wall in-between us and that “bad guy” in an attempt to protect ourselves from being hurt once again. We then carry bits of that hurt around with us and think that an apology is what we need to make things all better. I have definitely danced a few of these dances with an occasional apology but most often nothing. One of these apologies I will share in a few moments…..
On the far other extreme, I was taken aback when someone recently approached me with a sincere apology for a grievance that which I knew nothing about. This person truly felt they had wronged me about something specific and something quite terrible to them. And although their perspective was far different from mine and I was virtually unaffected by their actions, they perceived the situation differently and felt that an apology was in order. Regardless of how crazy I thought they were for going on and on and on about something so irrelevant to me, it was relevant to them and they needed forgiveness. It would be great if this was the only type of forgiveness we would ever experience. If only we could have the ability to magically construct a protective barrier around ourselves shielding us from any potential harm that should ever come our way. But that can’t and won’t happen so let’s not even entertain such a thing.
So let’s circle back around to that “big hurt”. That really big hurt that damaged our soul and left a permanent scar deep within our heart. That monster hurt that changed us forever, left us shattered and took us way too long to recover from. How many of these hurts have you had? How many of them are you carrying around with you still? Are you feeling that an apology is all you need to be able to be set free from the pain of this hurt? I truly hope NOT!!
I recently received a “big hurt” apology. I have to say that although I got it 10+ years after the fact, I don’t think the timing was the reason why the apology had a different effect on me than I had anticipated. You see this apology came quite unexpectedly and quite sincerely, yet it came from an individual whom I had already forgiven deep within my heart. I learned many years ago how holding anger towards someone was only detrimental to myself and through lots of prayers, I found complete forgiveness for this person whom at one time consumed most of my thoughts with bitterness and resentment. And now, as I was sitting there, with my mouth down to the floor because of this unexpected attempt at restitution, I realized that the forgiveness now was completely for his benefit and not mine. And that my friends… IS A WONDERFUL PLACE TO BE!!!
My hopes are that you are able to find peace and forgiveness for every one of your hurts no matter how big or how small because everyone needs forgiveness and it is better to have the forgiveness benefit them than for us to be the one needing it for our own peace.
Hugs!
Christie
