Forgiveness

Allow me to begin by saying that God is still working with me on forgiveness. Every time I start to think I've got it down, he points out another place where I am holding on to resentment and anger, and he starts encouraging me to open that clenched fist. It's difficult every time, it's painful every time. But at the end of it I always feel so relieved to be rid of the heart-burden I had forced myself to live with.

For me, lack of forgiveness has been a big part of the reason for my lack of health. Bitterness in the heart eats you up from the inside. It steals your life to fuel the fire of your anger.

It is important to forgive whatever or whomever you're holding anger against in your life. It is important because you cannot make any real forward progress without forgiving. Before long you will find your road blocked by the boulder of your grudges and any attempt to ignore that boulder will result in you getting crushed by it.

The thing that was surprising for me to discover about forgiveness is that often it is not a single person we are holding in contempt, but a whole group. You actually see it all the time; the fat girls hate the skinny girls for being so skinny, the poor man hates the executive for having money, the woman using fertility treatments finds herself hating every woman whose body produces children with ease. Even deeper, we sometimes hold un-forgiveness in our hearts toward a group because of the wounds they have inflicted on us. It was pointed out to me recently that I have a difficult time even speaking civilly to anyone in a smaller church because in my time of need a small church chose to judge and exclude me instead of reaching out to help.

We hold these things in our hearts, and we carry them around with us. Many times they are open wounds, bleeding our energy onto the pavement until we don't have any room left for kindness or compassion - not even for ourselves. And because all of our energy for good has bled out from this wound we've kept open, we cannot help anyone - least of all, ourselves. Because of these wounds that we keep open and bleeding we find ourselves trapped in poverty, or hiding inside an extra hundred pounds, keeping everyone at a distance for fear we'll sustain even more wounds.

Unforgiveness is a cycle of pain that returns to hurt you over and over. It will destroy your whole life from the inside out, if you let it.

My dear friends, today I'd like to encourage you to forgive. Take some time in a quiet, refreshing place and ask God where you have unforgiveness in your heart. Then, decide to let it go.

I know that sounds a lot simpler than it feels. And that's because when we think of just letting something go we often feel like that would invalidate us. We have a cultural understanding that letting something go means what the other person did was alright, and we shouldn't be in pain from it. Dear ones, that understanding is wrong. Forgiveness - real forgiveness - isn't about saying that the people who hurt you are right. It's about saying that, despite the wrongness of their actions or words, you are going to let God heal the wound. Because it is only with a healed heart that we can move forward in life.