Forgiveness??

One very difficult thing about relationships is the mistakes you make. I made mistakes in relationships before Kyle, and he made mistakes in relationships before me. And we both made mistakes in our relationship with each other. Forgiveness can be hard. Even though we love each other when I feel like he has wronged me I can and sometimes will hold a grudge. I am not proud of my behavior, and am trying to better myself in that regard but it is not an overnight process. Learning how to love properly takes time. When you love someone you don’t need to bring up past arguments or situations to prove a point. You have to leave the past in the past.  Forgive your others and forgive yourself. When we sin God doesn’t list the amount of times we committed that same sin against him and then badger us with questions like, when are you going to learn? He forgives us and shows us grace. It is so crazy how we want people to forgive us and not bring up our past mistakes but lack forgiveness in our hearts for others and even ourselves. Every day we wake up in the morning it’s a new opportunity to leave our past in our past and live for today.

No matter how hard I try I will never be able to erase the mistakes I’ve made. I have often caught myself trying to earn peoples forgiveness and most importantly God’s, but I can’t. Just like I can’t earn the love God freely gives me I also can’t earn his forgiveness. When we get stuck in past events it becomes very difficult for us to move forward. And when we lack the ability to move forward we become angry, depressed, discouraged, and so many other things. I know because there are so many things in my past that I am not proud of. One day when I was sitting in my own self-pity after reflecting on some poor decisions I made God spoke to me. He said, “No one has to accept you past but you. You’ve asked me for forgiveness and I have gracefully given it to you. Be relieved for I have rescued you and I love you just as much now as I did before despite of your sins against me. Nothing can separate you from my love.” I was in tears. God has forgiven me, but I am still very much on the journey to forgiving myself. Do not allow your past to dictate your future. Don’t hold grudges in your heart towards others when God has freely forgiven you. Allow God to heal the wounds that may still be open in your heart.

My prayer for you is that you will be free from whatever is in your past that still haunts you and hurts you. That whatever you have not forgiven yourself for that God will bless you to see yourself as He sees you. That you will be able to freely forgive others as Christ freely forgives us.  I pray you won’t look at your past the same way. And I pray that you will be able to openly share your story of redemption to others.